Guardian Circle

@hayesdata @markjeffrey @jacqvon Hi Jacqueline -- We're the first to put friends, family, neighbors, vetted citizen responders (Uber-ized ex-military, EMT's, Ambulance (in remote villages: "The guy with the truck who can drive to the hospital")) AND professional response (cops, regular ambulance) on a SINGLE shared emergency alert & communications grid. We get EVERYONE relevant on a location-sharing map + chatroom: we organize the response. This cuts down on the 'fog of war' in emergencies -- and gets info FAST to responders ("Mark is unconscious? He's deadly-allergic to bee stings, check for that!"). Chances are your network (friends, family, neighbors) are CLOSEST and can help you FASTEST. We allow Unlimited Guardians, Unlimited Alerts, so add as many people as you like. We're also the first to offer an API so anyone can plug any device or service into our grid. The XPRIZE Foundation has partnered with us on the Women's Safety XPRIZE for this reason. We have 87 contestants in 17 countries building devices that use our API. We've used it ourselves to create an Amazon Alexa Voice App (Skill) so you can just call for help with your voice and this will send a Guardian Circle Alert. We have a CarPlay version in the works as well. Finally, we are the first to introduce a cryptocurrency token, Guardium, as a payment mechanism & smart contract device. This means Guardian Circle is transportable across borders: no matter where you are in the world, push a button: a flash mob of (vetted) help comes. The Guardium blockchain also stores Alert Transcripts (so they are immutable and tamper-proof evidence), and the Alerting Party has sole custody of the encryption keys. Lastly, we provide an Emergency Information Lock Box (also encrypted on the blockchain) (your secret health issue, where the key is hidden in your front yard, etc.) that is only made available when you declare an Alert, and only available to your designated recipients. And one more point: Gifting will be a common activity we believe -- you can remotely sponsor safety in the developing world using Guardium: pay for a beneficiary's subscription service to upgraded protection. Now, because you sent Guardium DIRECTLY, it did NOT go through a .gov or .org or bank, so you KNOW it was not spent inefficiently or inappropriately (see Red Cross in Haiti). Down the road, we will provide 'extreme impact tracking': see how every donated Guardium-penny was spent as easily as you would a FedEx package. Phew. Think I'm done now :) Guardian Circle is released now worldwide. The Guardium-related stuff is still being built (though we have coins and wallets now).

@hayesdata We have a very sophisticated contact manager in-app that shows which of your contacts are already in Guardian Circle and makes it easy for you to connect with them. That doesn't sound like much, but that was actually pretty hard to do. Same goes for really great carrier / SMS support (and fallbacks) around the world.

@chrismessina You would be right about that :) To get the thing to REALLY work well (on iOS and Android, on different carriers around the world, on different screen sizes, etc.) took us a year and a half. Plus all the little UI niceties (the in-app contact manager that senses which of your contacts are already members and 'suggests them') -- do that WELL took time We've raised $160K in seed. That's it. We've sold a lot more that that in Guardium's Token presale, but that was only VERY recently (we've been working on this for 2.5 years). So the ICO route has already been a LOT more effective that the angel / vc route for us, no question. So what you're seeing in release right now is the result of 2.5 years and $160K.

@markjeffrey awesome, very helpful. Congrats on your success so far...! Very curious if you know much about the folks who participated in the ICO and why? Is there anything specific about Guardian that attracted their participation, from what you can tell?

@mark_jeffrey @marcbc Guardian Circle itself is a "for profit" entity that provides reference implementations of applications using the Guardian Circle API. The Guardium Foundation is a blockchain focused entity that is providing solutions for humanitarian efforts and charitable giving on the Guardium blockchain. At the moment we've only opened our API and docs to XPrize contestants for the Women's Safety Prize however that will be changing in the near future. In short we plan on opening things up greatly once we've received some further feedback from the XPrize teams and we feel that things are nicely settled in. We have a small team so keeping things limited in scope is a bit of a necessity right now. Along with the wider release of the API expect accompanying docs and open sourcing portions of the codebase. If you have further questions regarding "dev stuff" email developers AT guardian circle dot com. I'll more than likely be the person responding and I'm happy to talk further via that channel.

thanks for the clarification Chris, will keep an eye on the project!

@lyondhur These are all valid concerns, and we are well aware of them. One of our close advisors ran 9-1-1 in the State of Kentucky for a decade -- he has wanted to build exactly what we're proposing for years because -- in his words -- "9-1-1 is too big to fix". It HAS to be rebooted from scratch. He knows the existing situation is terrible firsthand -- and believes very strongly in what we're doing. Remember: he IS the '9-1-1 guy'. He was literally in charge of the entire state's emergency response network. Recently, we've seen 'citizen rescue' efforts in HoustonTexas with 'The Cajun Navy' during the hurricane. Without them, many people would have died. They did not have 'proper training', they were simply willing to lend a hand. In India, when a woman is assaulted sexually and calls the police, the police frequently assault her as well. This is the reason why the XPRIZE foundation created the women's safety XPRIZE -- and SPECIFICALLY called for a CITIZEN response. There is simply not another viable option there. In a lot of emergency situations, simply getting someone to the hospital fast is the thing that saves their lives. Strokes, bee-sting allergic reactions -- in these situations, your network IS your best chance of staying alive for this reason. Of course, not ALL situations are like this. In many cases, we will simply provide an Alert Operator who knows your location (unlike 9-1-1, that has no idea where you if you call from a mobile device (see John Oliver: "9-1-1 Sucks!" from a year ago)) and will send an ambulance to your location -- and this cuts down on time-wasted with 9-1-1 busy signals, having to describe your location (and perhaps you don't even know where you are)). Try to think of this as a much-enhanced Alert grid where location-sharing and immediate communications between ALL parties -- Alerter, pro, citizen, and friends / family / neighbors -- is the new thing. The protocols for WHO does WHAT are 'what you are trained to do and no more'. If you're not an EMT, don't try to administer medical aid. We are designing the response protocols of all parties with legal and professional responders assisting us -- we're not shooting in the dark. And we do hear what you're saying and agree that we need to tread thoughtfully.

@markjeffrey okay, so you got a guy who "was 911". The only thing that separates all these amazing examples that you cited, being Houston, India and virtually all citizen rescue initiatives, is.. money. None of these are for-profit and were done for free, by good samaritans and volunteers. That's not only awesome (I've been there myself way more than a few times), but from a legal perspective, non liable in most cases - depending on the law of the land it takes place. For example, here in New Zealand, because I had emergency training, I'm obligated to provide support if I come across one. I'm liable for my actions. (I'm a designer and project manager for tech/Dev) A citizen with no training is encourage to clear the area and call the authorities. Only. Anything else, they are liable too. If anybody prevents abuse or help out anything on spot -- AND NOTHING BAD HAPPENS -- they are awesome. If anything bad happens, they are still awesome but, because the is simply a gazillion variables in a critical scenario. An investigation will always take place in the unfortunate event of someone dying for example, whoever took part in the line of servicing that person may be liable. People just have to be aware of that. In the event of an allergic shock, often times getting the person help is better than getting the person anywhere.. Imagine this, someone isn't breathing properly and you're sure is allergic. You put them in your can and.. crash on the way to the local hospital or ER. Perhaps less grim, there was just a heavy traffic and you can't clear the road (as a private vehicle) to get there faster. Something happens. How are you not responsible. I'm not saying a private networks of "SUPPORTERS" shouldn't be organised. But the examples you mentioned are all off-spectrum because 1) a natural catastrophe in Texas where any help is precious and 2) intervening with the laws, police force and circumstances of a foreign country like India, for a privately controlled cryptocurrency (money) and without technical training is just too messy and blurred for me mate. I wish you nothing but good luck with the project, as I support any initiative that seeks to solve problems and help. Best counsel I ever received on this was that "The State can afford the painful burden of losing a life while trying to save it; it's their burden. A citizen never comes out of it unscathed." Don't let my utter skepticism about this in particular stop you. I'm just concerned that the "break things and learn from it" principle that we use as builders is just not to be applied in such cases. I assume this has not yet been experimented in the field yet. Correct me if I am mistaken please. Appreciate the response and the interaction. Kia Kaha.

@lyondhur Right now, we have the 'free friends, family and neighbors. version in the field -- it's out there, worldwide, today :) The paid mechanisms come later this year. And we will take our time and ease into those and be VERY VERY careful with each step. I totally appreciate where you're coming from and appreciate the 'back and forth' as well. :) As to whether this is 'for money' versus non-profit -- our current thesis is that to achieve sufficient density of 'vetted, trained help' it HAS to be for-profit. The responders need to be compensated for every hour they are 'available', and more for when they respond. We need to attract 'response talent'. As we learn, we will certainly change our minds about many things. I *think* we can make worldwide emergency response 500% better 80% of the time -- something like that -- simply through having a better cloud-based emergency alert / comms grid that organizes help faster / better / more of it. But it has to be 'the right help' -- I think that's your main argument -- the threat of 'noise' from lots of people who don't know what they're doing is a danger. I agree -- and the 'response algorithm' needs to create a flash mob of SIGNAL that outweighs or filters out all this NOISE. THANK YOU for your feedback and do I appreciate what you're saying.

@markjeffrey you’re most welcome mate. It just occurred to me that by paying the “responders force” you also establish a work/labour relationship with them. Best of luck.

@igoruphere That's what the API is for :) You're right of course -- opening an App in an attack situation is not going to happen. But you COULD push a panic button on a ring -- and if that panic button uses our API, bam! Alert sent. Or you COULD use your VOICE to call for help -- if you had Guardian Circle Alexa Skill installed (this works today).