Techie mom develops watch to keep close tabs on children
Techie mom develops watch to keep close tabs on children
BENGALURU: When IT engineer Shruthi Kamat's son was four and had to be admitted to school, her biggest worry was his safety. Reports of rise in child abuse cases alarmed her and made her think about ways to keep in touch with her child whenever he was away from home. “Once he reached school, I had no idea where he was till I returned home in the evening.At 12.30pm, he would be dropped in a school van and as there is nobody at home, my ayah would pick him up and drop him again to the play school,“ she recalls. Necessity , as they say, is the mother of invention. Soon, Shruthi came up with an answer: a child tracker device. Shruthi quit her job in 2013 to ensure till her son was able to speak a little more comfortably , she would be at hand. In the meantime, she began ideating for a solution. “We knew what we wanted, but the challenge was coming up with a hardware that would be small enough to be inconspicuous and a part of the child's daily wardrobe while ensuring that it would not be lost easily,“ she said. Shruthi thought about a hardware that can be put in the bag, but realized the child would not be tracked if the bag is left in class. It was during this time that Shruthi had an opportunity to go to the US with her husband. “I met my startup mentor and adviser Gajanan Bhat there and we decided to introduce a watch. As it's part of the child's wardrobe, schools would have no objection and it won't get lost too easily,“ she said. A year and two months later, Shruthi has just rolled out the watch, SPATCH, currently piloted at the Delhi Public School in Electronics City .The watch is for children aged up to 12.Shruthi is now working on watches that can be used by teenagers.