A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Seconds: Lassy Project Keeps Children Safe With Twilio MMS

October 29, 2014
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When a child goes missing, every second counts. So does every word. In high pressure situations like the moments after a child goes missing, communication has to be precise and actionable. Lassy Project knows this first hand.

Lassy works to keep every child safe through a network of app users they call “the village.” Lassy connects neighbors with other neighbors, towns with other towns and even cities with other cities in an effort to make a broad and powerful network of Lassy users all looking out for children’s safety. The more connected the village, the safer the child.

Using their app, Lassy users can upload critical information about their child, select emergency contacts, and monitor their child’s location via the app. If their kid goes missing, Lassy triggers an alert out to the user’s village.

Previously Lassy used SMS communications to alert the different Lassy Villages. Now they’re using Twilio MMS to instantly send other users  all the missing child’s pertinent details, last known location, as well as a picture of the child.

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The team hopes that including a picture in their alerts will drastically increase response time, and convey all the details that village users need to know in order to help locate a missing child.  This instant, visual message allows community members to know immediately who they’re looking for and where.  It also removes barriers to entry to access this pertinent information.  With the MMS alert users do not have to have wifi connectivity or a even a smartphone to receive the information and photo in a text.

“Having the ability to instantly share a missing child’s photo through MMS is an unprecedented technology feature,” said Lassy Project Chief Technology Officer, Temitope Sonuyi.  “This allows our users and community members to instantly respond to a missing child alert in their immediate surrounding area and potentially save lives.  It’s an incredibly powerful tool that can change the way that communities work together to protect their most valuable assets; children.”

Now that Lassy is up and running with Twilio MMS, they’re hopeful that it will help their villages of first responders to act efficiently, and immediately to bring missing children home.  Every second counts when a child goes missing, and now Lassy Project, with the support of Twilio, is providing the technology to find lost children, faster.

Join Lassy Project today and help build safer communities: www.lassyproject.com

Learn more about Lassy here (http://blog.lassyproject.com/)