Buzzer, a community safety app with roots in Hout Bay, was crowned a category winner at the annual MTN Business App of the Year Awards last week.
The app development competition attracted just over 1 000 entries this year, with many of the entered apps focused on solving societal and business problems. Described by the judges as an app developed to keep communities safe and connected, Buzzer was one of three finalists in the Health Solution category. On Thursday 13 October, Buzzer was named the category winner.
Keri Cross, Ricky Mutsa, Fiona Millar and Tracy Symons – the team behind the app – were watching a live stream of the Joburg event at the Community Crime Prevention’s (CCP) office in Princess Street, when they heard their name called. In video footage shared with People’s Post, the team members can be seen jumping up and down and hugging each other on hearing the news. Members of CCP shared in their excitement.
When People’s Post spoke to Cross on Friday, she said the whole experience still didn’t feel real.
“We only relaunched Buzzer a year ago. The number of lives we have helped save, alerts that have come through Buzzer: the explosion in Woodstock, the shooting in Camps Bay. We almost got 25 000 downloads – all in a year. Even just being nominated was a win, just to be recognised, to be one of the finalists.”
Today, the app provides a platform that connects residents to local security providers and their communities. The primary feature of the app is to create an SOS alert for individuals in an emergency situation, or for them to create an incident alert around a crisis or emergency situation they may be experiencing.
But six and a half years ago, it was merely an idea shared by two women: Cross and Jessica Boonstra.
Cross had just founded Hout Bay CCP. By setting up a closed-camera network and an effective communication “triangle” between the reporter (residents), the responders (residents or professionals) and the monitor (coordinator), CCP was making huge strides in reducing crime in the area.
Boonstra had recently moved to Hout Bay from the Netherlands. With a background in engineering and online tech, she was curious about how crime response and communication worked here.
She learnt about Cross and the work CCP was doing and wanted to meet her. Together they undertook to improve communication further.
“Jess and I were looking for a solution that is more social than an alarm button app but more efficient than WhatsApp, and free. And after looking in South Africa and the rest in the world, when we couldn’t find it, we decided to design it ourselves,” says Cross.
The duo organised a workshop with representatives from Hout Bay communities to brainstorm ideas. The result was a blueprint for what would later become Buzzer.
An Israeli company with experience in security tech was approached to build the technology and the app was launched at the beginning of 2019.
Cross explains that in 2021, they were faced with a hard decision when the Israeli company demanded full ownership of the app.
She says they had no choice but to take the app down in April of that year and to rebuild it from scratch, this time relying on the know-how of Capetonian mobile app developer Michael Fautley.
“It was a very scary decision, we knew we were going to leave people without a panic button. A lot of people were angry with us,” says Cross.
Within four months, the newly developed Buzzer app was back online.
Now, just over a year later, Buzzer is active across Hout Bay, the City Bowl, the southern suburbs, the Atlantic Seaboard, Milnerton, Noordhoek, Stanford, Grahamstown, Kent, Potchefstroom and the George Cape Nature Trail, with plans to launch in Nelspruit soon.
“We are a non-profit, we had to find funding to build this thing. Now it is fully South African-built, with no big corporate behind it. We are a tiny team, there are only four of us. For us to even compete on that level and then to win…”
