Hello, World!

My name is Tez Clark, and along with Alina Ranjbaran I am leading SafeCampus, the DPSI on preventing sexual assault. We’re excited to share our work with you over the coming months—look forward to our updates!

The Team

Alina Ranjbaran (College)

Tez Clark Tokyo, Japan (College)
I’m passionate about empowering students of all genders to bring an end to sexual violence.

Ana Maria Quirós (GSD)

Jen Krava Minneapolis, MN (GSD)
I’m interested in how we can network and create environments that act in our defense.

Julia Lee (College)

This Week at SafeCampus

What We Worked On

In the past week, we have gotten a chance to meet twice with our group, and were lucky to see our number grow between the first and second meeting! We discussed the direction that we would like to take the project, and technologies that currently exist that we could use as precedents. The current plan is to create an app that increases bystander awareness around campus and encourages friends and peers to check in on each other. Preventing sexual assault is something that everyone in the Harvard University community can get behind. For inspiration, we looked at the Harvard University app, talked about Google maps, and the mapping technology involved in apps like Grinder, that show the user a digital network of people surrounding them in real time. Since we want to encourage awareness all over the Harvard community, it is key for the app to be engaging and easy to use. We are lucky to have two students from the GSD (Graduate School of Design) on our team to streamline the user interface. In our meeting we brainstormed ways to make the app more engaging to university students, such as by allowing users to add friends and get points for checking in on them.

What Went Well

We were able to decide on the type of app that we would like to create, and determined that it would be as pro-active as possible. We moved quickly through these ideas and had great discussion about things that we would like to see the app do. There are many apps that currently exist from where we can draw inspiration, but none of theses apps perfectly fits the unique Harvard environment. We are excited to develop our project further and fill this niche. Everyone in our group comes from different backgrounds, and everyone brings something unique to the table. 

What Was Challenging

The level of detail that we need to drill down to, and the various scenarios that this app could apply to, as well as being cognizant of privacy issues are challenges. We also discussed adoption/support of the app by various university groups and if/how we begin to do that. We plan to reach out to other organizations on campus to discuss who they would like to see the app develop. Another challenge is that we do not have anyone on the team that is experienced in the actual building of an app. We are still looking for app programmers, especially those who are passionate about this subject matter. Ultimately, we want this to be an app that draws from the diversity and knowledge of Harvard as a whole.

What’s Up Next

We have talked about figuring out what we would like the app to look like, working through some of the details as to how it will be used, and determining various functions of it. We are still looking for additional programmers. If interested, please contact team co-leader Tez Clark at <clark01@college.harvard.edu>