Amidst the high-octane networking and big deal making at the Dublin Web Summit 2015, some of the youngest tech entrepreneurs at the event (five, 11 year olds; Katelyn, Chloe, Ben, Nadine and Daniel) from St. Audoen’s School, in the heart of The Liberties, hoped to win attention for the BullyBug. With the ambitious aim of ridding Irish schools of bullying, the BullyBug is a wearable technology wristband created by kids for kids.
The BullBug is a wearable anti-bullying device developed by kids, for kids, that can be used to alert teachers when a child is being picked on
Their mentors from the Boys & Girls advertising agency worked with the kids as part of a Solas Project initiative that partners primary schools with local businesses. The agency was asked by the Solas Project to develop a technology product that would be a potential solution to the worldwide problem of bullying, which is a particularly big problem in Ireland, with 31% of primary and 16% of secondary students reported to have been bullied at some time. Together, they developed a working prototype of the BullyBug, which had its official unveiling at the Web Summit on Tuesday, November 3rd on the Centre Stage at 8.10pm.
BullyBug - The wearable tech wristband to end bullying
The BullyBug wristband is fitted with an iBeacon, which when pressed, sends a message via Bluetooth to an app on a teacher’s phone, alerting them to the instance of bullying. The accompanying app instantaneously pushes a notification to the home screen of the handset while also recording the time, date and name of the student who activated their BullyBug. It was an idea born out of a Dragon’s Den style initiative designed to teach kids the basics of business and to show them the range of career opportunities that are out there. The agency set the kids a brief, to come up with “An idea that tackles a problem they experience on a daily basis,” and out of that 5-week process, the BullyBug was conceived. The team at Boys and Girls, with the help of 8Bytes app developers, worked with the kids to develop a working prototype of the product, which was unveiled at the summit on tuesday.
Boys & Girls advertising agency worked with the kids as part of a Solas Project initiative that partners primary schools with local businesses
They hope to take it further too. Pat Stephenson, partner at Boys & Girls, hopes to use the Web Summit to find some like minded partners who can help bring the BullyBug to every classroom in Ireland. Initial talks have been very positive, with Google a potential partner. He said: “We’ve been on a fantastic journey with these children; coming from their classroom to our boardroom and onto the stage of Web Summit but we don’t want it to end there. We think the potential of this thing is almost limitless.” Professor Mona O’Moore, founder and coordinator of the Anti-Bullying Research and Resource Centre (ABC) in Trinity College, added: “I think the BullyBug is terrific. It’s got huge potential because the biggest nut we have to crack is in actually reporting bullying, and the BullyBug wristband would have, I predict, a significant impact on the level of reporting.”
