GoVia: A Community/Police Safety App

In the U.S. each day  the police pull over 50,000 drivers. Unfortunately, too many police encounters result in unnecessary arrest and trauma experienced by the detained individual/s, including police-involved fatalities. For law enforcement officers, the pressure to perform their duties safely within seconds has its own life-or-death consequences, including accountability and transparency.

Greater awareness about the inequities of these encounters, and the outdated systems involving both citizens and law enforcement, demonstrates that communities are seeking new ways to stay safe and interact differently.  Yet many Americans distrust their government. And the lack of credibility among and between parties, including the police, contributes to an ever-widening divide and polarization within our democracy.

Research shows that cities have spent more than three billion dollars in police misconduct settlements. Yet the costs to public health, neighborhoods, quality of life and a democratic peaceful society are even greater.

GoVia is a community/police safety app designed to modernize policing and provide safer alternatives during an encounter. Our app is a suite of bundled tools that pairs a high tech, warm touch approach. Among the main elements are:

1. Deployment of sentiment analysis through artificial intelligence for those involved, thus allowing each person to gauge emotional intensity, which can help de-escalate a stressful situation; 

2. A crowdsourced rating system for individual police officer profiles that promotes greater transparency and accountability;

3. Immediate, real-time connectivity to on call professionals for legal, mental/health and other community resources, which would help support both parties.

The app will also collect information that can be utilized by citizens, organizations and law enforcement to measure and provide evidence-based data. This data can be used for safety enhancement, public service transparency and accountability. The app promotes civic engagement between community members and police to impact real change.

GoVia’s team is in the prototype stage, with a basic framework of the front-end registration and main menu of the app created. We’re still developing the back-end functionality, app features and customer service. 

Although the technical development still is in the prototype stage, the major development from concept to prototype has been conducting research, building partnerships, creating and fostering collaborations and partnerships, and diplomatically involving members of the local community, as well as honing the business plan.

PLEASE NOTE: Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and other legal contracts have been executed among any and all parties who have been privy to GoVia's solution. This intellectual property, although designed to impact the community for democratic benefits, currently has a patent pending.