Safety Lab is incubating Big Data, Mobile App, & Behavior Change projects to improve women's safety in India. We're inviting volunteers passionate about using innovation to make a dent in this significant problem in India.

1. THE SAFETY LABinnovation for women’s safety
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
mail : nirat@safetylab.in

2. // THE WOMEN’S SAFETY PROBLEM HAS FOUR VARIANTS
More than 50% of women in India experience harassment,
compromised public safety, gender-based-violence (GBV), & trafficking.
PUBLIC
SPACE SAFETY
DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE
WORKPLACE
HARASSMENT
A very large proportion of
Indian women suffer from
varying degrees of
violence and harassment
in “public spaces” such as
streets, parks, bus stops.
This everyday problem
severely affects the
mobility of women
outside their houses.
Factors that lead to this
are poorly lit streets,
poorly planned parks &
neighborhood markets,
bus stops, a lack of public
toilets, and in general
how public spaces are
designed.
The Nirbhaya instance is a
gruesome example of this.
According to the National
Family Health Survey,
about 39% of Indian
women have been victims
of some form of spousal
violence: sexual, physical,
or emotional.
Non-spousal violence
would increase this
number even more.
This violence which
affects women across
socio-economic and rural-
urban divides varies in
intensity. For instance,
physical violence ranges
from women getting
slapped by their husbands
(34% reported) to
attempted burnings (over
2% reported).
According to a survey
recent research report,
over % 17 of women face
harassment at the
workplace. A large
majority of them do not
report the perpetrators.
This issue cuts across
economic divides and
affects working in plush
offices as well as those
working as construction
workers or domestic help.
TRAFFICKING
Tens of thousands of girls
& women are trafficked
every year in India and
sold into either bonded
labour, forced marriages,
or prostitution.
These girls & women
originate from different
parts of India, though
Eastern India dominates,
and are either duped by
“agents” or outrightly
kidnapped.
Cumulatively, it is
estimated that there are
millions of trafficked girls
& women in India.

3. //THE PROBLEM IS GETTING WORSE IN INDIA
In spite of recent attention, especially since 2012, and high-level
debate & policy recommendations, the problem is getting worse.

4. // THE SAFETY LAB
The Safety Lab is a platform to incubate a series of innovation
initiatives that address women’s safety. These initiatives will include
but will not be limited to the following
SAFETY DATA
PROJECT
DIGNITY GAMES DESIGN FOR WOMEN
THE SAFETY LAB
An open innovation project to
get ideas around how a Big
Data based information
platform could help police
departments, government
agencies, corporations, &
individuals increase women’s
safety.
Subsequently, this platform will
be built and piloted with
additional grants & impact
funding.
A program that will collaborate
with leading game designers
globally to design a series of
“serious games” that lead to
boys & men treating girls &
women with greater dignity and
respect. A very essential
component in making India
safer for women.
This too, will be spun off as a
separate social project.
A design-led innovation project
that will seek to design women-
friendly experiences (such as
streets, parks, bus stops),
working environments,
government services,
matrimonial processes),
technology services that reduce
violence, and other related
services.
This will be a collaborative
project with leading designers
across the world.

5. Boiled down to its essentials, it will seek ideas on how Big Data can be used to address women's
safety. Our hypothesis is that many parts of the women’s safety problem and approaches such as
Big Data lend themselves to crowdsourced innovation. The richness and quality of solutions which
a well chosen set of participants can come up with, would be very difficult to replicate with a small
set of predefined stakeholders.
The project will start in 2015 and ideas that emerge from it will be taken forward in either their
original forms or by cherry-picking the best pieces of thinking that the contest unearths and
creating effective technology solutions to address the women's safety crisis.
We will be working closely with organizations in this space as well as the Government to scale
solutions that come out from the SDP.
// THE SAFETY DATA PROJECT
A PROJECT TO IDENTIFY HOW BIG DATA CAN ADDRESS
THE WOMEN’S SAFETY PROBLEM

6. // WHAT CAN BIG DATA DO FOR WOMEN’S SAFETY?
Used effectively, Big Data methods can enable HUGE improvements in
women’s safety.
SAFETY DATA
ANALYTICS PLATFORM
SOCIAL MEDIA
STREAMS
POLICE STATION
LISTING
CRIME RECORDS DATA
WEATHER PATTERNS
TRANSPORT ROUTES
THOUSANDS OF DATA SETS INNOVATIVE ANALYTICS MODELING PATHBREAKING POSSIBILITIES
DYNAMIC POLICING PATTERNS
Using insights from the Safety Data
platform, Delhi police know how to
change policing patterns to prevent
incidents of violence against women
in the anticipation of a very heavy
monsoon shower 4 days away.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ASSESSMENT
Using insights from the Safety Data
platform, a family is able to evalute
the “dowry-ask-risk” from a certain
man’s matrimonial profile.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING PRE-EMPTION
Using insights from the Safety Data
platform, an NGO is able to predict
the likelihood of a certain village
being targeted by child traffickers
based on agricultural yields and
income of families.

7. We are looking to build a network of volunteers who will contribute to the different projects
incubated within the Safety Lab initiative. Presently, we are looking to get volunteers who are
interested in the Safety Data Project & Safety App UX projects.
Volunteering will involve
• Problem Solving Participating in brainstorms & contributing domain knowledge to structure the
problem and think of possible solutions
• Evangelism to encourage individuals and organizations to join this initiative
• Partnerships to maximize eventual scaleup of this project
Volunteers can get involved with time commitments that vary from 4 hours a month to about
10-15 hours a month.
// SEEKING VOLUNTEERS
WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS WITH EXPERTISE
IN CONSULTING, ANALYTICS, BIG DATA TECH, HUMAN-
CENTERED DESIGN, & UX / UI DESIGN.

8. The Safety Lab will work with a group of organizations who represent a
global, multidisciplinary perspective to address India’s most pressing
crisis.
CONFIRMED
// THOUGHT PARTNERS
EXPECTED

9. THE SAFETY LABinnovation for women’s safety
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
nirat@safetylab.in