Kerala rain- Startup helping authorities in fight against fake 'flood' news With many of the roads in the city inundated, the Kozhikode City Traffic Police is currently using the app for awareness and issuing directions
At a time when Kerala is facing one of the worst floods it has faced in its history and while the authorities are grappling with the task of helping people, a startup is trying to help the administration to fight fake news, which is one of the major impediments in helping to control the damage. This comes at a time when the social media majors like WhatsApp are bringing in restrictions to fight the menace of fake news.QKopy, a social networking app from Kozhikode, which has helped the district health services to communicate authentic information to the public during the time of Nipah virus threat, is now helping the city traffic police to manage the traffic as most of the roads are inundated in the city.The app, available for both the iPhone and the Google operating systems, works based on the telephone number of the user. However, it is currently designed as a one-way communication system which would help an entity or a person to
broadcast to any number of people who have saved the particular mobile number to their phone, through the app.With many of the roads in the city inundated, the Kozhikode City Traffic Police is currently using the app for awareness and issuing directions. People, who save the number and download the QKopy app, will get regular updates directly from the traffic authority on where the roads are usable and which are the areas they should avoid. "We have been using Facebook to communicate with the public. Now we are also using QKopy. The difference is the ease of use and the additional authenticity the app can ensure," says Raju P K, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Traffic, North, Kozhikode.While opening Facebook, logging in and posting or reading the posts is a longer process, the new app provides the ease of directly receiving the information from an authentic source, he said. Around 2,000 people in the city are using it for the traffic updates at present.QKopy Online Services Pvt Ltd, a bootstrapped startup incubated by the State government's Kerala Start-Up Mission (KSUM), released the networking platform to the public in May 2018 with an idea to tap the Business to Customer (B2C) market targetting the neighbourhood stores and small business units which can communicate with target customers. In less than a month, with the help of the KSUM and other authorities, the District Medical Office (DMO) at Kozhikode found it useful in creating awareness and communicating directions among the people without the interruption of fake news or unnecessary messages, which has plagued the social media networks creating panic among the public during the time."The established social media networks have their issue of large-scale fake news being spread through them. Besides, with relentless posts by multiple users, the important information may be buried somewhere in the page and may not serve the purpose to the required extent. QKopy is an interesting app, which would help to communicate with authenticity and ease," said Saji Gopinath, CEO, KSUM. The company is currently offering its services to Life Mission Kerala, a livelihood inclusion and financial empowerment programme launched by the State government to offer houses to the landless and homeless in the State, National Health Mission, KSUM and UL Cyber Park, Kozhikode, where its office is situated. The company calls them the influencers, while it claims to have around 15,000 end users. The directions or posts can be communicated to any number of customers. "We are in talks with the Kerala Police and other administrative authorities in the State to offer the services to them. We are also developing a feature in which the individual user can also communicate to the authorities, making it a two-way communication," said Rajiv Surendran, co-founder and COO of QKopy. It currently has a nine-member team with Founder Arun Perooli, co-founder Rahul K C and five creative members. It is also in talks with various investors to raise funds, he added.
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