Amrita Kripa

आपदा राहत के लिए एक भीड़ सोर्स मोबाइल आवेदन

Amrita University develops a Mobile App “AmritaKripa” for Rescue and Relief Operations during Inland flooding

Amrita Center for Wireless Networks and Applications (Amrita WNA), a research center at the Amritapuri campus of Amrita University, has developed a Mobile App “AmritaKripa” f for effective and timely management of relief and rehabilitation efforts during inland flooding.

Amrita University and its parent organization, M A Math, have immense experience in disaster early warning, disaster management and disaster relief. M A Math’s Embracing the World is a worldwide NGO engaged in such activities. This has motivated us to endeavour towards this noble cause. Based on this immense experience, AmritaKripa has been developed for the end users, victims and relief providers. The features of AmritaKripa are:

Ability to request for rescue, medical help, supplies such as food, clothing, medicines, etc., shelter, and services such as water, electricity, telephone services, etc. This will be used by the disaster victims.

Ability to offer rescue, medical help, supplies such as food, clothing, medicines, etc., services, and shelter. This will be used by the relief providers, both individuals, organizations, and government.

Ability to report people missing and people found orphaned either conscious or unconscious.

All these features will be offered through a set of high-performance, user friendly mobile and web applications in multiple languages.

Even though AmritaKripa is being developed to deal with inland flooding situations, it can be used in any disaster scenario. The use of smart phones with internet data services is widespread especially in rural areas. Even though the mobile network may get disrupted during a disaster, it gets restored fairly quickly. Also, even though the phone lines may get busy, the data network is seen to be more resilient. By building a robust, durable suite of applications that can be readily deployed in these situations, Amrita seeks to improve the effectiveness, traceability and scalability of such crowd-sourcing efforts manifold.

“Amrita University and AmritaWNA are focussed on delivering solutions directly benefitting the people at large under the profound guidance of the Chancellor, Dr. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. This is yet another testimony to that commitment. By directly linking the help seekers and providers in the post-disaster environment using the ubiquitous smart phones and internet, we expect to expedite the relief and rescue operations by orders of magnitude and also improve their effectiveness by making them targeted at the individual level”, said Dr. Maneesha Sudheer, Director, Amrita WNA.