The most threatening part of managing any disaster is the drop in communication.” 1 in 4 relief packets does not reach the intended user due to the lack of communication between the disaster victim and the contributor.”
A lot of resources are allocated by the Government to mitigate the crisis but a lot of time, effort and money is wasted in identifying the victims and the resources allotted may not necessarily be the most useful to the victim. Therefore establishing communication between the victims and the crisis management body is extremely vital. At the time of a natural disaster, the entire communication network takes a hit, thereby hindering the rescue efforts. A communication system in the form of a phone application that works “Off the Grid” can replace the traditional system.
Every Smartphone has a feature to generate a Wifi-Hotspot along with a Bluetooth signal, to which multiple devices can be connected to. By creating a peer to peer network web using a combination of Wifi and Bluetooth, a huge number of devices can be interconnected. The User’s phone number can act as the user-id and this can be authenticated with sim card present in the user's phone and hence uniquely identifying every user and allowing for direct communication by entering the recipients phone number like you usually would, without the need to validate the users phone number by a traditional method such as an OTP.
During rescue operations, using a combination of sensors present in the user's phone, rescuers can now determine the location and impact in a victims proximity using the rudimentary sensor data available in the phone that can be sent over this peer to peer network web that has been created and analysed to predict the condition and the current situation of a victim.
The form of communication we plan to deploy would work quite similar to that of a normal communication application that most individuals are already familiar with in terms of its usage. The integrity and authenticity of all the users and their messages is maintained with the use of Azure Blockchain.