Filipino balikbayan (returning resident) and entrepreneur Debbie Anne Macariola-St. John is a woman on a mission. She wants to prevent deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents, or at the very least, minimize these incidents by warning the drivers and the pedestrians ahead of time. She paints a grim picture of road safety in the city.
“Anybody who ventures out into the streets can be a potential target. As pedestrians, we can be hit by motorists, causing us severe injuries.
Many pedestrians have figured in accidents that have resulted in terrible disabilities, unimaginable injuries, and countless loss of lives,” she warned. Indeed, statistics show that over 34 Filipinos die due to road accidents everyday. In Metro Manila alone, collisions average more than 200 incidents daily. Macariola-St. John likens a Philippine drivers’ license as a license to brandish a deadly weapon—the automobile.
With such grim statistics, everybody hopes for the day when pedestrian rights are prioritized and pedestrians are no longer threatened as “moving targets“. Macariola-St. John believes that road safety can be guaranteed for every road user, be it pedestrian or motorist. Thus, she left her home in the Bay Area in the United States and chose the Philippines as the pilot market of CROXTEC, which is pronounced as “cross tech.’’ This pedestrian safety app is the flagship product of her technology ventures company, Djanco Information Technology Solutions, and she’s on a mission to make this app a game changer.
Digital EWD
CROXTEC is envisioned to help stem and stop the rising number of road fatalities by providing an alert system to its users and providing an early warning alert to both driver and pedestrian if there is an impending danger. It is meant to help users become more mindful of the vehicles and pedestrians in the immediate vicinity. Once you sign in as a user, CROXTEC immediately identifies you as either a motorist or pedestrian and sends you alerts on whether you are in the Safe Zone, Caution Zone, or Unsafe Zone. CROXTEC is a free downloadable app available on Google play for Android phones. The catch is that it needs data for it to work effectively.
Macariola-St. John envisions CROXTEC to drive the Philippines, which has some of the busiest streets, thoroughfares and highways in Asia, into a future where the roads are safer for pedestrians and motorists every day. She is driven to push her company to create digital products and applications that will enhance smart city living and promote a more organized and safer urban environment. She hopes to spread CROXTEC’s application around Asia, and then the rest of the world in the foreseeable future.
