PickMe's SOS feature helped relief measures

Some start-up companies came up with unique ideas to support relief measures during the last two weeks, especially to pick dry rations from donors. Among them was the mobile app based taxi hailing service, PickMe.

PickMe initially teamed up with a television station to pick up dry rations from those who wanted to contribute. This was done through a special icon on their mobile app, which customers could click on, and the company would send a taxi for the pickup. The collections were brought to a pick up point and delivered to the TV station, to be distributed among the needy.

PickMe's SOS app was also used to locate and rescue flood victims who were marooned. All those who had the PickMe app on their phone could click on it and PickMe could identify the exact location of the stranded people, using GPS tracking. CEO, PickMe, Zulfer Jiffry said, "We had a large number of people who responded and some of this information we passed onto the teams doing rescue operations while we also operated some boats to rescue people." "Even though GPS tracking has been around for a long time, this is probably the first time it has been used as an interface between the those who were in distress and teams involved in rescue missions. There is a lot that needs to be done in creating awareness and during these floods we have learnt what we can do over and beyond just being a taxi service," he said.

The company collaborated with the Defence Ministry to airlift marooned flood victims. PickMe had a team to pass on distress signals no sooner they were received to the Defence Ministry helicopter rescue crew who acted on them deploying their craft to the locations provided by the company. Over 200 families including children, pregnant mothers and the elderly who were in unreachable areas were brought to safety, said Jiffry.