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Our Idea is to develop a mobile app for the disaster victims and the government to communicate with them. Natural Disasters are situations that cannot be avoided but can be prepared for to an extent. In the past, the Kerala Government had faced several calamities, and this app would take more than half of their burden in managing the situations. The application contains two user modes. The first one is for the civilians, which will be used by the common mass. The second one is for the authorities that can be used for updating the location of refugees’ camp, food supply as well as to alert civilians.<br>
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Take this situation, say if a city is suffering from flood and the people need to be rescued, the government can’t send rescuers to every direction of the city but instead we can use this app to locate the area with high population density and rescue them. We can also identify pregnant women and children in the area if they had provided the information in the app during signup.
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We can include a medical emergency option in the app which can be used in case of a medical emergency. When this option is selected, it’ll notify the authorities about the location concerning the emergency, thus increasing the response time. With this app, rescuers can add the location of where they are setting up a relief camp and the whereabouts of the food supplies. The app can act as a link between the government and the common people, where they can be warned with a push notification on their mobile phones quickly at the event of a disaster. It can exclusively be used when the cellular networks are down. With it, the user can know exactly where they are, using a GPS map. This is done by using the GPS in our phones which requires no network connection. Suppose the network is not down, it uses the cellular network and during a blackout, it gets the user location from the satellite. Finding the initial location will take a longer time with this method. Even though the accuracy is dependent on factors like terrain and surrounding buildings, however, the location will be reliable.<br><br><br>

Nowadays smartphones have become very common, therefore the reach and number of users would be high too. By using the data on the amount of rainfall in that particular area the app can estimate of the number of days needed for the situation to become normal. We can also include some life-saving videos such as, medical videos, basic life-saving hacks and videos that will help pregnant women, different posters as well as DIY instructions which will help the people to know what to do and what not to do during these disaster situations.
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The app also comes in handy as it can store the location of the previous refugee camps, so when a disaster strikes, the users will know where to go to be safe. This is where the lightweight offline map comes to the rescue. 
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Technology:<br>
To create the app, we are using the Flutter framework.  By using this framework we can significantly reduce the app size and thus the battery consumption of the device. DART is the language used to create the application which is a mix of JavaScript. Using flutter we can create a mobile application (both IOS and Android) as well as a web application so it can be used either from mobiles or with a computer. Flutter is a new open-source UI software development kit developed by Google in 2017, with this tech, we can create fluid light apps.<br><br><br>

For getting the location of the users we are using AGPS, which is called assisted GPS. This is the usual method in which the apps are getting our location with our permission. With this method, the government will be able to track the users using this app during a disaster.
If all networks are down or during an internet blackout we can use satellites to get the location of the user using the normal GPS (pre-installed in mobiles normally) which requires no internet or any kind of network, for example, apps like GPS phone Tracker and Locate any phone already uses this technology. But it takes some time to get the exact location because the connection from the satellites which is usually slow (50 bits per second) but the probability for a complete blackout is very less. With this method, the government can’t track the users, but only the users can know their locations. The government will also be able to track the victims using satellite but it requires some permissions to be granted, which are restricted for civilians. If the permissions are granted the government can able to track the movement of the civilians using their GPS.<br><br><br>

During a blackout, for shorter ranges, we can use MESH Network to communicate with each other which does not require the cellular network connection, however, it has some limitations too. For example, say you are in a relief camp and the authorities want to send a message regarding evacuation from the area to every the refugee in the area without having a proper network (i.e network blackout), here we can use MESH Network which transmits messages using each user’s mobile phone as a router. The distance or coverage depends on the smartphone’s signal strength, it varies from one model to another. The approximate distance needed is about 100 feet between two smartphones. When several devices are connected in a particular area, we can also create a small network there, using this MESH Network. Take this case, people often use this technology in Puerto Rico and Detroit to create their own local network in the time of disaster as they are often hit by hurricanes. Some other apps that use this network are The Serval App, Signal Offline Messenger, Voger, Briar etc. We can also make calls and share photos and videos with this tech.
To get the rainfall data, we can make use of the weather reports from the Kerala Government, which can be used for the situation evaluation feature.<br><br><br>

Viability:<br>
This application is going to have a small footprint hence it consumes only a small amount of battery power. Creating this app is a one-time investment, which can save many lives and hence the initial cost will not matter much in the future. We will be able to create this application with less cost because all the technology that we have mentioned above are already present, hence we just need to combine all them together in this app. 
As the size of the app is small, users will not get bothered about the mobile storage space it consumes and thereby will not have the incentive to delete the application from the phone. This application can be used on IOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux and Online Web applications. So it would be very much helpful for all kind of users.
Some of the users will not be able to understand the instructions written in English properly so they could also select Malayalam as their user language thus it can be used by everyone in the state.<br><br><br>

Involving light offline maps in the app is a good idea too. During the case of an emergency, the users can also use this app for navigation purposes. Hence, there is no need to delete the app because of the storage problem.
While using cellular network we are not getting the location from the user continuously, instead of that we are refreshing the location of the user every 30 minutes. Because of this, the GPS in the phone will be turned on occasionally, thereby the battery consumption is significantly reduced. We are also providing an option to the user to select the refresh rate manually, it is like the location can be known once the user presses a specific option called GET LOCATION.<br><br><br>
Usually, maintenance for an app is always minimal and we just need to update the app in overtime for better performance and experience.
Providing the basic information like location, food supply, relief camp and medical help through this app is its main purpose. We are also giving the messaging service through MESH network and location through GPS during a blackout which is not implemented in most of the other apps till now.
Using Satellite during a blackout to get the location is a special thing about the app.
During a disaster if the power also went off we can switch to Low Power Mode in the app, now the app only shows the emergency button and a offline map. The messaging and other services will not be available in the low power mode as it requires bluetooth to be turned on. But still the location will be refreshed every 30 minutes even in the Low Power Mode, so that the government can track you and you too can know your location.<br><br><br>


Social Impact:<br>

This app would be very helpful for children, pregnant women and for the old people during a disaster like a flood, tsunami, earthquake etc.. For example say if a pregnant woman is going to give birth or suffered an injury, the doctors can be prepared even before they arrive at the relief camp.
This app would be very helpful for the government to handle the situation in an organised manner. For example, if a particular tourist area is hit by a flood without this app the government can’t decide how many people are stuck in the area but with this app, we can know exactly or nearly how many people are stuck there.
Volunteers can also arrange these phones in particular pattern during a blackout so that the particular area can communicate with the area which has network coverage. For example: if they arrange their phones in a line with a gap of 100ft each till they get the tower coverage  they can communicate with the officials in the headquarters using the tower.
Because of this app, people can be more aware of the ongoing and upcoming climate changes and disasters. Now a days, most of the people are hooked to their phones and these pocket-sized devices are one of the most reliable means to spread information quickly and reliably with the masses.
People can also use this app for instant messaging. For example, in an aeroplane when you and your friend are not seated together or when going into a forest for a trip a group of friends can use this.
It can be used even inside an office building for communication. Take another example, if the guy on the first floor wants to send a message to the guy on the 14th floor he can send it in a very small time. This is a real experiment done by a startup to find the speed of the mesh network and it took only 0.5 seconds to send the message from the first floor to the 13th floor. These uses will make the people think that it is a useful app and they will hold on to this life-saving app. With proper planning, design and implementation, this app will become one of the life-saving tools during a disaster situation.<br><br><br>