Zoe Fox2013-04-20 16:29:44 UTCKristina Anderson was shot twice in the back and once in the foot on April 16, 2007, when a gunman massacred 11 members of her Virginia Tech French class. Thankful to have made a complete physical recovery since age 19, Anderson has since dedicated herself to starting a non-profit that promotes campus safety and speaking around the country about her experience.
"In the past year and a half, I've become more outspoken about what happened and the importance of campus safety," Anderson tells Mashable. "I didnt think more shootings would keep happening, but as they have I've become more involved."
Now she's helping launch an app she thinks has the power to make campuses, and eventually communities, safer. LiveSafe connects students and campus police in a two-way dialogue through a smartphone app. The hope is that this app will not only equip police to better respond to crime, but also to prevent it.
"LiveSafe is a two-way communication between campus police and students," Anderson says.
"Students are comfortable with smartphones; they use them to check in, order food and post pictures. We thought, we should also use our phones to make our communities safer."
"Students are comfortable with smartphones; they use them to check in, order food and post pictures. We thought, we should also use our phones to make our communities safer."
She and the LiveSafe team know that students hardly use the call feature on their smartphones, but they do text photos and videos. Therefore, students could be sending the police much more robust information. If a student gets robbed, you can ping the police using the app, sharing your exact location with a description of the crime — and you can remain anonymous when doing so.
With the app, the police can also communicate with students via push notifications, emails and voice, using either data or Wi-Fi connections. For Anderson, a notification from the campus police may have changed her fate six years ago. Neither she nor her classmates had any knowledge of the first shooting, which had occurred earlier in the morning at around 7:05 a.m., when the gunman entered their class at 9:30 a.m.
The shooter's first victim, Anderson explains, is a typical "test" shot. Many times a first attack will precede a much larger second one, so the shooter can gauge what he or she can get away with.
LiveSafe co-founder Shy Pahlevani, like Anderson, drew from personal experience when creating the app. Pahlevani was robbed and wanted to know why he couldn't immediately respond, so he and Samier Mansur built the app to empower people and communities in safety.
LiveSafe is currently beta testing on two campuses, North Carolina's Winthorp University and the University of New Hampshire. Winthorp has seen 6,500 downloads on its campus of just 6,000 students — the neighboring community has embraced the app, as well.
LiveSafe is currently only available for iOS, though an Android version is expected to roll out shortly. After receiving feedback from police chiefs, LiveSafe plans an open launch this summer.
Image by Tim Sloan/ AFP / Getty Images; Screenshots courtesy of LiveSafe
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