by Cristobal Chavez Bravo
SANTIAGO, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chilean engineer Barbarita Lara has created a one-of-a-kind app that helps people send messages during a natural disaster -- even when there is no cell signal or Internet access.
"S!E," short for Emergency Information System, relies on existing radio signal infrastructure to encrypt messages into high frequency sound waves and transmit them to cellphones.
The application has attracted the attention of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which named her one of the most important innovators under 35 in Latin America, the first Chilean ever to make the list.
"It's an honor to be able to take this happy moment and share it with Chile, and be able to show other women that it is possible, and it doesn't matter that everything went wrong in the beginning," Lara, 32, told Xinhua.
Lara, who studied computer engineering at the University of Santa Maria, came up with the idea for the app following the powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake that hit Chile in 2010.
In the aftermath of the quake, in which 525 people died according to official figures, there were serious communication problems when phone and Internet signals were disrupted.
"Chile has a lot of natural disasters. I live in an area that faces threats from fires, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes," said Lara.
When all forms of communication break down, she said, "we are left isolated and with no means to communicate with the outside world and that is not right because being able to communicate and get information is a right everyone has."
With S!E, mobile phones receive the audio messages that can be heard through the phone's mic. Messages can also be resent wirelessly, creating a network with other users.
In creating the app, "we thought about Morse Code. Before, when there were only analog systems, signals were sent to a radio to encrypt information and someone who knew that code could decipher it," Lara said.
This is what served as the inspiration to create S!E, which combines analog with digital systems with the purpose of interconnecting the radios.
"This is the safest way to transmit information via smart phones. Everyone has one. And that is what we did by using a simple app and simple electronic coding," she said.
Lara, who has founded a business called Emercom, said the app is a simple and inexpensive solution that can be used in every country.
"We want to see this used worldwide. We want to be the first emergency network that helps people in the aftermath of a disaster at no cost. And obviously, to show that you can develop simple, high-tech innovation in Chile for the world," she said.
