Safe & Sound: Wearable Devices Are About To Save Lives!

Determined to put our safety in our own hands – in the best way possible – three women at the forefront of the tech industry show Marie Claire the cute, clever, and ultra wearable devices that’ll always have your back. 

- Renyi Lim

YASMINE MUSTAFA

Co-Founder & CEO of ROAR for Good 
www.roarforgood.com

“The unfortunate truth is that every woman knows what it’s like to have the hairs on the back of her neck stand up,” Yasmine explains. “We’ve heard from many women who live in a constant state of alertness due to the threat of potential violence – and for many, this fear dominates parts of their lives.”

ROAR for Good – a social-mission benefit corporation co-founded with fellow tech entrepreneur, Anthony Gold – was set up in 2014 to empower women and reduce assaults. It came as a direct response to Yasmine’s experience in South America, where she met numerous assault victims and heard their stories during a six-month solo trek. Just a week after she returned to Philadelphia, a woman feeding her parking meter was dragged into an alley, severely beaten, and brutally raped – and it was at that point that Yasmine decided to leverage her skills, resources, and energy to make a difference.

Committed to engineering a device that would act as a deterrent by helping ward off an attack and instantly calling for help, Yasmine and her team conducted focus groups and interviewed technologists, self-defense gurus, police, and public safety officers to come up with a way to protect women from physical assaults at the touch of a button. “We learned that most women do not like existing self-defense devices like pepper spray or Tasers: they’re worried they’ll accidentally hurt themselves and they’re afraid they might be overpowered and have their own devices used as a weapon against them.”