ILOILO City – On the same day Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” started battering the province of Capiz on Oct. 27, 2022 and rescue operations were underway for distressed residents, five students from its capital Roxas City – the inventors of an app for centralized emergency assistance – won in a digital innovation fair in this city.
The emergency assistance mobile app offers a straightforward yet efficient means to contact responders when unforeseen circumstances and emergencies occur. It is called “Tabang”, a local dialect for aid or help. Anyone in danger only needs to click one button to send the appropriate authorities a text message asking for assistance.
Mobile app team member Devine Grace Acurantes was hearing news about “Paeng” ravaging her home province on the day they won the innovation fair. She believes their app can have a big impact, especially during disasters.
“My hope is to have this app integrated as it could be very helpful,” Acurantes said.
Capiz and Antique were the two hard-hit provinces in Western Visayas. “Paeng” left eight fatalities in Capiz, in addition to infrastructure and agricultural losses, records of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s Emergency Operation Center (EOC) showed.
A total of 17 municipalities and 367 barangays with 107,285 families composed of 413,079 persons were affected by the typhoon in Capiz.
Other “Tabang” team student members are Ysha Sam Alejega, John Kenneth Fernando, Vina Mae Jocsing, and Raymond Saenz, all of Dumolog National High School in Roxas City.
According to team coach Adonis P. Besa, the innovation fair gave students the freehand to identify and choose which of Roxas City’s community-based problems require solutions.
During their brainstorming, emergency situations had an impact on the students. Aside from perennial flooding not only in Roxas City but also in several municipalities of Capiz, the rising cases of road accidents also pushed them to create an app that would provide reliable emergency response.
This goal and their digital innovation eventually led them to win the top spot at the TCS goIT Digital Innovation Fair 2022, a tech innovation program by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in partnership with the Department of Education (DepEd) in Region 6.
They bested a total of 80 teams from various schools in Western Visayas who presented their ideas for digital innovation solutions to local concerns.
“Usually, we can see a lot of people seeking help via social media. ‘Mu ‘na ang nag-trigger sa mga kabataan to come up with a mobile app that can be used by the entire community, not only by Roxas City but the entire province during emergency cases,” said Besa, who is also a teacher at Dumolog National High School.
According to Besa, people will find it easy to report incidents and request assistance via a smartphone app, and help will arrive quickly. More significant than awards like trophies, individual medals, and certificates, he added that Team Tabang wants to give back to the community.
He said the group intends to present the software to the Capiz provincial government for potential adoption for the whole province.
“We believe through this application, daku gid ang mabulig sini sa aton diri sa bilog nga Capiz,” he added.
Besa emphasized that the students’ innovation is very timely and relevant.
“We should be high tech na in terms of reporting and responding to any emergency cases. Kumbaga it will put a system in the process para nga maging smooth, fast, convenient, and accessible sa tanan ang manner of reporting and responding to emergency cases,” Besa stressed.
THE APP AND HOW IT WORKS
Primarily, the app requires the user to register to collect information that will be used in sending message alerts.
Its first feature is “Call Hotline” where the user can directly make a call to default emergency institutions with one click.
The second feature is “I need help” where the user can accurately send an alert to the responders and his emergency contacts, containing the type and specific description of the emergency and an image of the incident, where personal information and location will be automatically attached once sent.
Then, the user can track his responder’s location. Through the “Admin” button, responders will see message alerts of incidents, track the user’s location, share their own location, and send a report once the incident has been responded to.
The third feature is “I am Safe” which automatically sends a prepared message to the user’s emergency contacts.
“I am Updated” is the fourth feature for the users to know the latest emergency reports, to receive updates from different institutions, and to reiterate safety and emergency tips as highlighted in infographics of emergency and disaster preparedness.
According to Besa, the mobile app benefits end-users, or citizens, because it allows them to easily communicate with rescuers and their families.
Rescuers can respond quickly to emergency situations due to the accurate and substantial incident details.
Also, emergency service providers like the emergency response team, police stations, hospitals, and fire department could easily pickup information and monitor it so as to respond to emergency situations.
The TCS goIT Program aims to demystify computer science and encourage students to pursue STEM education.
Rooted in the design thinking process, the program encourages an empathetic approach to problem solving and has successfully introduced to the students digital technologies and agile methodologies that would help them learn skills needed for a digital-first future.
Numerous initiatives this year addressed urgent issues in their local communities, including disaster risk reduction, waste management, digital help for farmers and fishermen, climate change awareness, and support for distance learning, to name a few.
DepEd-6 regional director, Dr. Ramir B. Uytico, said that with vice president and Education secretary Sara Duterte’s mandate to strengthen IT education and training not only for students but also for teachers, the regional office was grateful for programs like goIT and partners like TCS who help the department achieve its goals for the local education sector.
Uytico also expressed his gratitude to TCS for giving Western Visayas students the skills they needed to create notable projects that made significant contributions to communities.
“I am in awe of the talents and skills that our young innovators from the Western Visayas region have exhibited at the TCS goIT Digital Innovation Fair 2022. Here in DepEd Region VI, we are glad to see how quickly our students are learning to adapt to technology and be digital-first,” Uytico expressed.
Meanwhile, app SIGHTS (Sensory Imagery Giving Help to Sightless) from the Schools Division of Capiz bagged the second place.
The app aims to aid visually challenged individuals with everyday communication tasks, with speech-to-text features and voice command. It also has an audio library where a compilation of learning resources may be accessed.
Time Capsule from the Schools Division of Roxas City, whose innovation is a medicine reminder app targeted towards senior citizens, came in third place. Its features include a time tab that summarizes a patient’s prescription, including information about the drug, the dosage, and intake instructions.
Negros Occidental’s entries – Agrigrow from Sipalay City and PinkWisely of Bago City – were the fourth and fifth placers, respectively.
Agrigrow is an app that supports farmers’ productivity while PinkWisely is an awareness app on Pink Tax that helps provide information on cheap alternatives for common women’s commodities./PN
