Air Alert is an app for air alert notifications in Ukraine

Task

Previously we've written the article "Together with Ajax Systems, Stfalcon developed an app "Air Alert". And now you can get to know the whole case study below! Let’s dive in!

This case is unique because many people in the conditions of war united to create a complex technical solution as an alternative to the outdated street notification system. Such projects have been created for years, and we did it in a few days.

At Stfalcon, before the war, the mission sounded like this: "We develop software that improves people's lives." Now the mission is: "Developing software that improves and SAVES people's lives."

From the first days of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it became clear that anyone can suffer from airstrikes and missile attacks. From our own experience, we can say that air alarm signals are almost inaudible in the sleeping areas of large cities. If everyone was on guard during the day, the situation became more complicated at night.

Solution

Our CEO Stepan Tanasiychuk had an idea to create an application that would inform people about danger, even at night, even with the phone in silent mode and Do Not Disturb mode.

The first versions of the applications were created in a few days in cooperation with the Ajax team with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. The complete development cycle from understanding the need to the first release took 1 day (it was the 4th day of the war).

On the 5th day of the war, the application already announced the alarm in Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi and had 40,000 users. On the 6th day, we went into an official release, and there were 140,000 users. In a few days, all regions of Ukraine were connected to the application. The theory of 6 handshakes worked here because it was necessary to reach out to the administrations of all regions of Ukraine through the Ministry of Digital. That is, the difficulty of implementing the application was not so much in development but in management and communication.

After the second release, the Stfalcon team joined the development of mobile applications. In general, the idea arose in Stfalcon, Ajax helped with the technical implementation, and Stfalcon was involved in the launch and implementation of the idea, integration of the application at the state level, testing, and building the support department. The latter was helped by the marketing agency “The Kasta” and the “Fwdays” team, which built a support department from scratch.

Development

As of July 10, 2023, the application has significantly expanded its functionality compared to the first releases in March 2022.

Mark Hamill (the actor who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) voiced the English version of the app.

Stfalcon joined the fundraising campaign organized by Mark Hamill and the UNITED24 Foundation for drones. The development team has placed a fundraising banner in the Air Alert app (10 million UAH has already been collected).

The application contains a map of air alerts throughout Ukraine with the history of the start and end of the alert. Currently, users are notified of the start and end of five types of alerts:

• Air alert
• Shelling
• Street fighting
• Chemical threat
• Radiation danger

Information about all types of danger is transmitted by responsible operators in the regional administrations of Ukraine. The coordination of alerts is provided by emergency services. Unique notifications are created for each type of alert. In addition to sound signals, the app sends text messages with recommendations for actions, depending on the type of threat.

Based on numerous requests from citizens of Ukraine, the Stfalcon team implemented the multi-subscription function in the Air Alert application, which allows the user to subscribe and receive notifications from 5 different regions not only one.

The volume function is now split into Alert Volume, start notification and Alert Volume, end notification. This will allow you to not wake up at night from the “air alert is over” signal if you are already safe.

In the "Air Alert" application, a link to the "Shelter!" Telegram bot created by Stfalcon has been added to the threat notification screen. This bot allows you to quickly find the nearest shelter on the map based on your geolocation.

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