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Texting and driving.   Smartphones have made it is for us to stay connected all the time but the use of the phones while driving poses a serious safety risk to us and others.  Cell phone distraction rates are alarmingly high. Typing text messages while driving adversely affected nearly all aspects of safe driving performance.  Overall, texting produces visual, physical and cognitive driver distraction.  In the United States accidents that occur from texting and driving rate 64% of the total accidents.  In places like the UK, Australia or India statistics show a high percentage of fatal accidents caused from distracted driving. Places like Japan and Alaska have toughened their laws increasing their fines rates and including possible prison terms.  And the World Health Organization estimates that the mobile use makes accidents four times more likely.

ShutOff puts to rest the use of the mobile applications. Shutoff App is a mobile application developed as a tool that enables taking back control of the use of mobile technology. It allows device usage management, assuring that these will be used in a timely and appropriate manner eliminating distractions and helping you focus on your tasks.

Among its configurations Safe drive, for example, is a system that automatically disables cell phone applications while driving. When detecting speeds greater than 20 kms per hour, applications are blocked to prevent distractions therefore decreasing the risk of an accident.

Our global market: The use of smartphones is increasing exponentially and the number of drivers that are usually looking at their phones is disconcerting. People who read or write text messages while driving are 23 percent more likely to be involved in a car crash than other drivers. Just in the Unites States it is noted that the use of cell phones while driving plays a role in 1.6 million auto crashes each year, causing 500,000 injuries and 6,000 deaths. The use of cellphones is common to the world. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone. Most of the mobile market growth can be attributed to the increasing popularity of smartphones. The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019 (67%).  The mobile phone penetration is forecasted to continue to grow. China was predicted to have just over 1.4 billion mobile connections in 2017, while India was forecast to reach over one billion. By 2019, China is expected to reach almost 1.5 billion mobile connections and India almost 1.1 billion.

Our opportunities and trends: This problem is leading to a great amount of plausible solutions that can help regulate the proper use of these devices. Call it legislation, regulations, norms, apps, awareness campaigns or promotions all of them together are seeking to demise a growing trend.  We have seen that mayor telephone and car companies are seeking to make people conscious of the inappropriate use of cell phones whilst driving.   With the introduction of the fifth generation cellular network technology 5G is people will be even more connected and in consequence more prone to accidents around the world.

Our risks: The introduction of the new technology may affect the performance of the application. Additionally, people often dislike the fact that they cannot use their phones specially on their “free time” which has become being in the car. This represents a high risk for the app.

Direct competitors.

Cell phone technology companies such as Apple and Android who are developing partial or palliative solutions in their operating systems in relation to cell phone use while driving. The system identifies the movement and the Blue Tooth system by enlarging the cell phone images. It is mentioned as palliative since the use of the cell phone (distraction) is the root problem, so these programs continue to motivate the use of the phone while driving.

Applications such as Waze that implemented mechanisms that propose a solution for cell phone use, giving the driver the option to place if he is a “driver” or a “passenger”, a voluntary activity that makes it possible to circumvent the system.

The telephone company Att & T developed an awareness campaign addressing the problem of the increasing accident statistics generated by texting while driving. Like Att & T, other applications have been launched that address the issue of texting while driving, such as Cell Control, Drive Safe Mode, Live2Txt and Safe Drive, many of which are no longer available and others allow uninstalling or disabling them while driving.

Indirect competitors

Road education campaigns by public institutions and private entities aimed at avoiding the use of cell phones while driving: [1] National Highway Transportation Safety Association who have invested up to $ 1 million dollars per state (active) in the U text campaign. U drive U Pay. [2] “Don’t text while driving,” “Eyes on the road,” and “Crashed Cases,” Volkswagen’s campaigns in countries like China and Sweden.

The increasing incidence of accidents worldwide has been a trigger for the creation of legislation that prohibits the use of cell phones while driving. Countries like the United States, China, UK, Japan are just a few places that have implemented legislation that prohibits the use of mobile phones while driving.

Around the world there are endless civil organizations dedicated to awareness and road education which manage funds for their campaigns.

Competitive advantages The competitive advantages that ShutOff offers are based on market needs and evaluate existing solutions. ShutOff is an application that is activated automatically when detecting speeds greater than 20km / hr; The application cannot be uninstalled due to the security codes that are entered in the clerk's phone and has other features that complement the application such as S.O.S and pick me up. Additionally, the app can evolve and be applied in other areas such as corporate spaces to improve productivity, educational spaces to improve attention and as a family app to recover family time.

At present there is no patent on the idea or part of it. The logo and the trademark though have been registered since the beginning of the project. This was done in Guatemala.

On 2018 we were selected as top 10 finalist among 85 participants in Guatemala in the Open Future-Multiverse Training Program.  As part of this program, Telefónica, a mayor telephone Company and associate of the program tested and validated the application for 60 days on their sales fleet.  During the validation period we had continuous meetings in order to evaluate the functioning of the application, glitches of the program and specially people’s reaction to the application.  We offered the application to Telefonica but there were recently bought by Claro making it impossible to continue the process due to internal situations of the companies.

At present the Del Valle University of Guatemala, through the Oficina de transferencia de Tecnología, is helping us to develop a new evaluation to validate the application which will be focusing on quantifying the impact of the app and people’s interest and reaction in the millennials market.

By downloading the app two phones can manage (a control and a dependant) at a cost of US$9.99 a year.

In order to capture the market we plan to approach insurance companies by offering them the product as a plausible solution to reduce the costs for the company; design  awareness campaigns for safe driving; join government institutions that met the goal of safe driving and joining them as part of their campaingns offering the use of the app for free and creating alliances with other groups involved in road safety.  In Guatemala the Social Security Intitution  (Instituto de Seguridad Social -IGSS)  is working on their prevention campaign and we plan to approach them to offer the use of the app for free as a support to our community.   The key performance indicators will be the %  reduction reflected in statistics.

Our team is comprised of three people and our IT members:

[1] Julio Montes, the creator and CEO of the project.  Julio is a born entrepreneur who’s first project was lunch at the age of 30 (student electronic agenda). Ever since he has been generating other ideas that are being materialize in other projects. He is a visionary lawyer who’s one of the most important achievements was being the first undergrad president of the Lawyers Association of the Francisco Marroquin University. He owns 50% of the company.

[2] The other 50% of the company is owned by Jenny, a museum specialist, archaeologist and the present project coordinator, who’s one of the main achievements was able to obtain a scholarship to Japan and was able to assist even though her dad passed away almost the same day that the program started.  Jenny is an archaeologist who has work in Guatemala and Belize, she was the museum curator for 8 years and as a result pursued a museum career that is her main specialty at present.  As a daughter of Belizeans she spends a great amount of time in Belize and has helped create the sawdust carpet tradition (during Easter) in her hometown that has well widespread among Belizean community at present. Its been 13 years since the first one was done.

[3] Mario, a volunteer and community manager use to be in charge of the Marketing Department at his university at the age of 35.  In order to seek his dream, he decided to quit his job to start his personal marketing company. He continues to be happy to have taken that decision. Additionally, we work with the programmers, who were in charge of developing the app and still oversee the functioning of the app. None of the last two own any shares of the company.

Year 1.  100K to be invested in programming of the app in order to fulfill all the security requirements of Google play and the international market plus a marketing campaign that can help us reach our target market (parents with children with the age of 16+).  Year 2 and 3.  150K to be invested in maintenance of the application and marketing of the app plus an aggressive awareness campaign that will be targeted among young people of the age of 16+.

Statistics show that 51% of all the accidents due to texting and driving are caused by teenagers from the ages 15 -29.  We plan to reach our first milestone (parents with teenage offspring) through the insurance market.  In Mexico City just by capturing 20% of the 10% of car holders that are insured we can be able to monetize the app by 33 million in one year.   The US market posed that a total of 481,000 of drivers use their cellphone when they drive, an estimate of 25% of accidents involve phone use.  Capturing just 1% of the registered cars in the US is equal to that 20% from México.

There is definitely a positive impact on the community with this application. We now this because in our years of being out there looking for an opportunity no one has ever told us is a bad idea.  The concept has been embraced in all markets and contests.

With the correct launch of the app and the penetration of a global market we can help make people aware of the problem and risks that using a cellphone on the wheel represents. We are sure that we can save lives.  We need to care and target the millennials and Generation Z who are the future of this world.

At present parents, governments, important telephone and car companies and civilian institutions are committed to help reduce the accidents due to due to distracted driving and specially texting and driving.  The investment reaches millions of dollars. For example the NTHSA has invested one million dollars in their prevention campaign per state for a period of three months with the objective of reducing accidents.  As this is a growing matter worldwide using an application that can reduce the statistics will help parents feel safe about their offsprings driving without the distraction of the phone, governments and insurance companies will be able to reduce their costs and others benefits will derived from the use of the app.