MUSA - effective application for students

MUSA is a proposed application that was brought to thought after realizing that there are a significant amount of challenges facing the Maseno university students as far as security is concerned. There is a need to find a way to curb this challenge since it is without a doubt that our lives are at risk and our learning conditions have been compromised which should otherwise be conducive. One way to handle this problem is to find a way to notify the right authorities in real time during an actual attack or any other threat that should be considered an attack on any student. MUSA comes in: this application will be able to link students and relevant authorities together so that when the need arises, by just a click of a button from the victim, there should be an alert that help is needed from fellow students and the relevant authorities.

MUSA will simply rejuvenate the “nyumba kumi” initiative or rather digitalize it in the sense that, at least ten of your close friends will be added to the people-to-reach list in your app account and in a way bringing you together as proposed by the “nyumba kumi” initiative. Before the project is due, it's compulsory that at least

• There should be a network, rather a way that the link between the students is established without possible charges and if any very less.
• A pre-study is done to better understand if the project will curb the situation at hand by at least 60%.
• If the local community would positively accept the introduction of this project since most victim claims that 95% of the threat comes from amidst the local community.
• Most importantly ensure that the app will not encourage mob attacks; anybody guilty or not has the right to face justice in the court of the law but not in the mercies of the mob.

Finally, when the project is completed it should be a comprehensive app that allows every registered student to add at least ten of his close friends or neighbors to their people-to-reach list using their phone numbers. The means of reaching the list will be by the use of SMS API that would send a message to the list by double-clicking the panic button on the application. The people to reach list will receive the alert through a pop-up notification. There is no effective application in Maseno university that students can easily use to seek for help when they are attacked in their rooms or a victim of any form of an assault.

Students remain helpless due to:

I. Poor connectivity to the relevant authority and neighbors who can alert the police on victim’s behalf.

II. Inadequate time to broadcast the message through calls and short messages due to the nature of the attacks which happens within a short period of time

III. No secret way of raising an alarm against the attack objective The main objective is to come up with an application which Maseno university students can use to seek for help in case of an attack in their hostels. It aims at improving collaboration between students when their security is compromised.

These can be addressed as follows:

I. To develop an application that a victim of an attack can use to send a push notification to their connected friends

II.To come up with a Panic button that can automatically send an alert when pressed Justification of the Project The MUSA app (maseno university security alert app) is a project aimed at strengthening security within the vicinity of the university and most importantly ensure that students’ lives are not at risk. It is without a doubt that security is one of the major factors that I negatively affecting the university students. The project which is typically an alert system ensures to reduce this by creating an awareness to other students of a potential threat to their fellow students.

The main goal of the project is to improve on the security within the university premises and its environs since:

I. There is no faster system within the university that can be able to alert relevant authority on time

II. Most students are under attack when alone leaving them helpless

III. Mostly single hostels are raided

IV. This app enables victims to alert others by just a click of a button without the threat noticing which would otherwise make him/her suffer more damage

V. Most perpetrators suffer from mob justice and through this app, only the relevant authority will be notified and therefore arrested to stand trial but not brutally beaten or killed by the mob It’s without a doubt that an effective alarm system (MUSA app) will at least ensure if not so, reduce threats and attacks from students.

Scope and limitations

The application will address security issues within Maseno university and its environment. The application will be available to all students with smartphones which are running on the Android platform. To achieve maximum benefit from this application, basic knowledge on how to use Android devices will be required. This app will not serve those who don’t have android smartphones or have smartphones running on other kinds of operating systems. There is a problem of a user raising a false alarm by accidentally clicking the panic button. Some users can even decide to raise a false alarm deliberately.

To mitigate this risk the panic button will have to be clicked two times so as to raise the alarm. We will also have to create awareness among the users on how to use the app so as to get the best out of it. We will also have to educate the users on the kind of problems and disadvantages they can cause to other stakeholders when they deliberately raise a false alarm. Security being almost a concern in every community the technical community have an obligation in helping solve the issue. Maseno University has been facing a lot of insecurity cases where students have lost their property and others suffered injuries and some even losing their lives. Several people have tried to solve this problem of insecurity by coming up with various security applications but this has not been done at Maseno University. Some security alert applications such as the circle of six have been made to enable people in the USA to alert the police when their security is compromised.

Safetrek app is also another security app which people can use to alert the police when they are in danger by clicking a button. (techlicious.com) Such apps have benefited people from these communities and coming up with one tailored for the museum university community would help reduce the insecurity experienced in museum university. Maseno university and its environment are still depending on the old method of raising alarm in case of an attack.

Contacting the relevant authority using the phone number and ululating are insecure ways of avoiding danger. Internationally safe Trek App for iPhone, witness app, lifeline Response app and Emergency SOS panic Button have been programmed to address this issue(homesecurityresource.org). Maseno University Security Alert App (MUSA) will be unique since it won’t require GPRS access. It will be a house based program where during registration a user will need to add his/her place of residence and contacts where the notification will be sent in case of house attack. The notification at the recipient will contain the sender name and the place of residence.