[LUM#3] Solidarity 2.0
What if your phone could help you rediscover close, supportive relationships with the people around you? That’s the ambitious goal of the creators of the EyesHelp community app.
At first glance, nothing seemed to point Marc Nguyen and Olivier Mazières toward a career in new technologies. The two friends are dentists and former students of the Faculty of Dentistry in Montpellier. But one day, Olivier’s father came face-to-face with burglars in his home, who then fled. He wanted to warn everyone in his neighborhood about the lurking threat, but didn’t know how to go about it…
“We live in an ultra-connected world; we have ‘friends’ all over the planet, but we don’t know how to reach our neighbors when we need help,” laments Marc Nguyen. The two friends then had an idea: to create a community app to connect us with those around us and make our daily lives safer. That’s how EyesHelp was born. Feeling unwell in a remote location? Witnessed an accident? Lost your cat in the neighborhood? EyesHelp lets you alert people nearby.
Civility and kindness
To“breathe new life into community relations,” Marc Nguyen is counting on“everyone’s civic-mindedness and kindness.” How does it work? The app pinpoints the location of the person issuing an alert and sends a message to the phones of nearby “helpers,” who can then offer assistance or call emergency services if necessary. With nearly 2,000 helpers signed up in just a few months, the app seems to have found an audience.
The next goal for Marc Nguyen and his colleagues at Gamox is to offer a partnership to local governments.“EyesHelp is a great way for municipalities to stay in touch with their residents, for example, to notify them of roadwork or incidents on public roads.” But it’s also useful for emergency services, which can receive alerts sent through the app and respond more quickly in the event of an incident.
“Beyond the concept of emergency, we want to reconnect people with one another and ensure that everyone pays a little more attention to their neighbors.” In short, that we look up from our phones a bit?“Exactly! In fact, if the app truly achieves its goal, then we won’t need it anymore.”
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