NINA

Elected by Forbes under 30 Brazil 2019, Simony César is Founder and CEO of NINA - a tech to track harassment cases in urban mobility. Gender, tech and mobility consultant in the Future Cities Programme in partnership with Ernst & Young and the British Government. In partnership also with WRI Brazil, Toyota Mobility Foundation and the Prefecture of Fortaleza she coordinated the implementation of NINA and the creation of the Program to Combat Sexual Harassment in Public Transport in the 5th largest city in Brazil became a reference worldwide. MAN Impact Accelerator Fellow program for acceleration and global scale of startups with mobility solutions offered by Yunus Social Business and MAN Truck & Bus. Nominated by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences for the BRICS Young Innovator Prize 2018 - an award that recognizes research projects by young scientists who have developed innovative solutions to improve living conditions in emerging countries.

A case of harassment occurs in Brazil every 4 seconds (Brazilian Public Security Forum 2016). Despite this, harassment in public spaces only became a crime in the country in September 2018. According to research by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, entitled "Transport systems most dangerous for women", in different parts of the world, such as Mexico, India, Russia, China, the US and others, they suffer from a hostile environment for women and this impacts on their social development.

A standard reporting channel that can be integrated into any transportation application. Based on the data collected, we can influence public and private policies in an emergency and preventive manner.

Engage the citizen role of victims and witnesses to be able to report quickly and practically. Bring data about the problem big, but that is often silenced due to lack of incentive to make the complaint or to know how to do it.

Every 4 seconds a harassment case occurs in Brazil (Brazilian Public Security Forum, 2016). 97% of Brazilian women have already suffered harassment in urban mobility, (Locomotiva Institute, 2019). According to the report Evaluación de impact of the program “Viajemos Seguras en el Ciudad de México / Let's Travel Safely in Mexico City" or by the Inter-American Development Bank (2017), gender violence in Latin America is a major social problem that affects mainly women and it is supported by deep and persistent gender inequalities in society. Indeed, important research has shown the magnitude of the problem worldwide and how this phenomenon has increased in recent decades. However, there has been a tendency to reduce gender-based violence for women to private or domestic spaces. The classification between interpersonal violence (violence between people linked by blood, marriage or consensual relationships) and social violence (one in which those involved do not have relationships) doesn't allow visualizing the forms of urban violence that occur in the public space committed by strangers for gender reasons. There're no clear reporting channels, there's no psychosocial care for victims. Although the survey numbers are alarming, less than 10% of the complaints come to the attention of the police.

Nina is a startup and mobility and gender consultancy. We provide technology to track, standardize and centralize complaints of harassment in urban mobility. NINA's technological service that can be integrated with different transportation applications, in order to combat the harassment cases that occur during commuting in cities. Both victims and witnesses can report on the platform.

Based on data, we assist in the creation of public policies for emergency and preventive actions to combat the problem and for the promotion of urban planning with the aim of guaranteeing the right of access to the city and gender equity.

65% of the paying public for the Brazilian public transport system are women, however, their representativeness when occupying management and leadership positions with decision-making power in public and private companies that build and manage the transport system is almost null.

NINA was born as a test on buses on the university campus. But to measure the real impact of the solution, we implemented NINA within a public policy in the 5th largest capital of Brazil, the city of Fortaleza, which has an average of 1 million users transported per day on the public transport system. In the first 06 months, we received almost 1000 reports of harassment on buses, accelerated collection of evidence such as images from cameras inside buses, we help victims and witnesses to seek psychosocial help. And even with the lack of female representativeness in government positions, data on the displacement of women in cities were and are made available to the local government to guide actions in an emergency and preventive manner to curb cases. Access to mobility is the single most important driver to alleviate poverty. 

NINA began for personal reasons. I grew up in a poor community in Brazil and my mother used to work as a transport ticket collectors for the Recife City bus system, leaving home, every day at 4 a.m. She would spend over 12 hours as an easy target in the urban fleet. Her situation made me feel helpless, though such hardships were not limited only to my mother or myself. The mere fact of being both a woman and a user of public transportation puts us all at risk and restricts our possibilities of ascension and social development by denying the fundamental right of mobility, or freedom of movement. When I arrived at university, which was already very difficult given the whole context of my life in Brazilian society, I found myself as a public transport user and suffering the same problem that my mother suffered years ago. As a student of Design, I have always believed in the social role of a great problem solver or of giving back to society for our education and I started to investigate how I could help in some way to combat the issue of gender violence in the urban aspect.

I have a visceral connection to NINA. I grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in my city, Recife, which is in one of the poorest and most beautiful regions in Brazil, the Northeast. My mother became pregnant at 18, she's a mother alone, with help only from my grandmother. When I was 02, my mother moved to São Paulo city, which is more than 2000 km from where my grandmother lived. My mother went to try a job, as she had no education. She can't take me with her. She left me with my grandmother who raised me, took care of me, taught me to read and write at home. My grandmother showed me that education could transform my life.  When my mother moved in with us years later, I was very afraid of "losing her" again. Not that she went to Sao Paulo again. But losing her now to urban violence. I believe that for the whole context of the history of strong women, of resistance, and of repaying all the affection and sacrifice that was made aiming at a better life condition for me, I dedicate myself so much to NINA.

I'm Chief Executive Office of the NINA Mob. I'm in her senior year of the Social Communication – Advertising and Marketing undergraduate course at the Federal University of Pernambuco. As a student, I started working as an intern at one of the largest bus fleet managers in the north and northeast of Brazil in 2013. In 2016, I started my academic research in order to understand how gender violence in urban mobility is an impeding factor access and maintenance of women in higher education. As a result of the research, it started the development of NINA. NINA helps victims or witnesses report violence (an API which can be integrated into any application - from route planning to ride-hailing). This tool then tracks, standardises and centralises harassment reports occurring in public transport. I was a semifinalist in the InoveMob Challenge, promoted by WRI Brazil and the Toyota Mobility Foundation. In this challenge, I coordinated the implementation of NINA and given support to creation of the Program to Combat Sexual Harassment in Public Transport in the Fortaleza city and became a reference in this area. Today I'm fellow of Yunus Social Business in the MAN Impact Accelerator startup acceleration program in partnership with MAN Truck & Bus. I'm currently part of Ernst & Young's team of experts in the areas of technology, mobility and gender, which is a delivery partner of the Prosperity Fund Future Cities Program, specifically in the city of Recife project. Elected by Forbes Under 30 Brasil 2019.

I come from a very humble family. We never had any money or property. We have always been a hard worker. Education, in Brazil's social inequality, has always been a privilege. I work since I was 12 years old, but I never stopped studying. When I managed to get into university and took a liking to research and started mine on gender violence and understand that I could do NINA, I needed money, but how? Which bank would give a loan to an unsecured student? The government would not finance the research of a graduate student, without any scientific publication or supervision by a professor. So I started researching non-refundable public notices and started to apply for them, until I got it. I won two: Red Bull Amaphiko and Toyota Mobility Foundation. It was my starting point to overcome the financial challenge and start the development of NINA.

I was the first person in my father's family to go to university. The first of generations. When I started to develop NINA, my goal was to facilitate reporting, assist victims and witnesses, generate evidence and data and influence public policies. I saw everything here as an academic researcher. When I realized that I would need to pay bills, hire people and think of everything as a product, it was necessary to list priorities in my life. What could wait and what could not. Could my diploma wait or could a victim of harassment wait? Without a shadow of doubt. I dropped out of college. It was an extremely painful process because it was not about me leaving, it was about a family story behind my back. At the same time that NINA has become the story of millions of women around the world who could now have a second chance. I think I made the right choice. This year, amid a pandemic, I will graduate. I don't know if this is an example of leadership. But it was one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in the past 4 years.

There is no other world of technology like NINA that can be integrated with different transport applications in order to consolidate as a big data-driven business in addition to mitigating an issue of having a standard reporting channel everywhere, that these data guide actions in the public and private spheres so that in the short, medium and long term cities and, consequently, the mode of transport is safer and more accessible for women and consequently for all.

Currently, we cover a circulation area with 1 million users transported per day in the city of Fortaleza. We started the process of implementing NINA in 2 more Brazilian cities and we estimate that in the next 02 years we will cover an area with an average traffic between 5 to 10 million public transport users per day.

Within the next 05 years, we want to start an international case of NINA in Latin America and another in Europe, but specifically in the United Kingdom. We want in these spaces, cities, countries, in addition to implementing our technology and methodology, to insert the discussion about gender violence on the agenda of society, in the priority of political decisions, so that it is seen as an emergency issue that it really is.

Within the next 05 years, we want to start an international case of NINA in Latin America and another in Europe, but specifically in the United Kingdom. We want in these spaces, cities, countries, in addition to implementing our technology and methodology, to insert the discussion about gender violence on the agenda of society, in the priority of political decisions, so that it is seen as an emergency issue that it really is.

In the last year, we sold 15% of our company so that we could invest in scaling our technology and expanding our operations in Brazil. Thinking in the long term, this contribution received will not cover the costs for the creation of our international cases. Obviously, the cost of operating and maintaining NINA is with the contracts we have signed, whether as the respective local governments or transport entrepreneurs in that region or even sponsors. So, the first challenge is the financial one until we have closed contracts. And the second biggest challenge for NINA right now is to overcome the different legal hiring barriers in each city, state, country. The transport market has a good acceptance with regard to our product and data, as this not only restores transport by working with the stigma of an unsafe place, but beyond the image there is a transformation in practice and most importantly, for both government and businessmen , is the permanence of users and the attraction of new users to the sector. What is good for traffic in cities and also a factor for gauging usp and occupation of urban spaces.

With regard to the challenges of financial resources, we have investments, we recently raised funds and we always look for public notices or sponsors to be our partners in these projects in new cities.

WRI Brazil, Toyota Mobility Foundation, Yunus Social Business, MAN Truck & Bus, Red Bull, Quintessa, IN3CITI Venture Capital, Prefeitura de Fortaleza.

Our business model consists of B2G or B2B

1. We have a consultancy service on mobility, technology and gender to guide the creation of public policies to combat sexual harassment in public transport;
2. We offer a standard reporting channel in API service format (Application Programming Interface) that can be integrated with existing transportation applications and cameras inside the buses to collect images;
3. We offer access to the control panel with access to data collected in a given region as a source of georeferenced harassment, with time, crime classification, among other data, for emergency and preventive actions.

We charge a single installment fee for the consultancy + a monthly fee per bus or vehicle that makes up the fleet we will cover + a setup fee to make all the necessary integrations

Our services that generate revenue sources are basically three:

1.Consulting - One-time fee;
2. Setup fee - Single fee to start integrating our technology;
3. API Integration - Monthly fee per bus or vehicle according to the fleet we cover.

We also capture via non-refundable public notices or through partnerships like these:

2017 Red Bull Amaphiko - US$ 5k

2018 Toyota Mobility Foudation - US$ 20k

2019 IN3CITI Venture Capital - US$ 70k

2017 Red Bull Amaphiko - US$ 5k

2018 Toyota Mobility Foudation - US$ 20k

2019 IN3CITI Venture Capital - US$ 70k

US$ 60k

It's kind of funny to be able to write a little bit of my story today thinking about the improbity of it all. I was born in a humble family, in a poor community. I faced very difficult barriers when a poor, Amerindian woman is born in an underdeveloped country like Brazil.
I never saw myself as a hero. I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. I have always seen myself as an academic researcher with a moral obligation to give back to society thanks to the quality education I had and free of charge. It's true that NINA started on a very personal matter, but I soon saw that it was not an isolated factor. Much worse, it happens every 4 seconds with any woman in a country of continental extension like Brazil. I worked these last 4 years to put NINA on the street and help people. The bills to pay, we manage. I have a genuine concern and perhaps that is what has taken me to places I never thought to reach. I am looking for an opportunity to improve what has been built so far and help more and more women, bring the debate to the whole of society, show that we are all responsible and thus engage the population as a whole, not only businessmen or politicians to prioritize the city a safe place for women and consequently for all so that this is the first step for the opportunities to be equal, regardless of gender.