What Is It?
Created by a group of friends in response to the 2015 Paris terror attacks, My Panda aids locals and travelers in the avoidance and escape of similar events. The app works in 30 cities and counting—from LA to Paris to Rio and beyond—to keep you and your loved ones safe in case of emergency. In addition to crisis-mode comfort, the app boasts a safety barometer so you can avoid high-threat areas altogether.
How Does It Work?
My Panda uses crowd-sourced, real-time data from its security platform to alert users of violence or terrorism in their vicinity. The app is both proactive and reactive, using algorithms to predict attacks as well as innovative technologies to assist in case of emergency. Should potential dangers appear on the event horizon, My Panda will alert authorities and help app users seek shelter.
My Panda combines safety features from other maps into one place, helping those under threat check a number of stay-safe boxes in one fell swoop. Rather than searching for escape directions on Google Maps, sourcing news on Twitter, and checking in as “safe” on Facebook, users can perform all of these tasks—and more—within My Panda.
Our Favorite Part:
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a seedy part of town and a hipster neighborhood, and major metropolitan areas can transform from safe to sketchy in the space of one block. Our favorite part about My Panda is that it functions as a safety barometer, providing a heat map of the city correlating to its level of safeness. Check the map and then explore.
As Dr. Dre once said, you can’t put a price on peace of mind. Listen to the doctor and put safety first when you hit the road. Want more information about staying safe while abroad? Visit travel.state.gov.
Get It Now:
Annie’s based in Los Angeles but hails from Portland, Oregon. Sort of. She moved to six states by the time she reached middle school, and continues to move around the US and abroad – call her a nomad, but she prefers “Location ADHD.” After studying abroad in New Zealand, Annie circled the globe, graduated from USC, and circled the world once again. For one year she lived out of a backpack everywhere from The Philippines to Nepal to Slovenia to Norway. She’s a curry connoisseur and passionate explorer, taking the road less traveled, the “trail” covered in vines and swarmed in exotic bugs. Foreign lands feel like home, and Annie loves encouraging more and more people to utilize their passports and experience a new culture.
