Entrepreneurs and philanthropists, Naveen Jain, left and Anu Jain, far right with winners of the $1 million women ’s safety wearable award, from center, left, Avinash, Neiharika and Manik Mehta of Leaf Wearables, at the UN in New York on June 7.
(Photo: Gunjesh Desai)

Entrepreneurs and philanthropists Anu and Naveen Jain announced New Delhi-based Leaf Wearables as the grand prize winner of the $1 million “Anu & Naveen Jain Women's Safety XPRIZE” at the United Nations in New York City on June 7.
The couple launched a million-dollar prize using the XPRIZE platform, the nonprofit global player in designing incentive competitions solving humanity's grand challenges
The prize, launched in 2016, challenged global innovators around the world to create a device that can inconspicuously trigger an emergency alert if a woman is facing a threat and transmit information to a network of community responders, all within 90 seconds and cost under $40.
A diverse range of 85 initial teams from 18 countries including, United States, India, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Germany, China and the United Arab Emirates, heeded the call.
The five finalist solutions were tested to see how the devices might fare across a variety of environments including high rise office buildings, college campuses, in public transit, and at home. Most importantly, all of the solutions from the finalist teams worked in areas with no cell connection.
The winner, Leaf Wearables created Safer Pro, a smart safety device that sends emergency alerts with location details to a users’ guardians when they sense danger. Safer Pro is a small chip that can ultimately be put into any device or jewelry with a discreet emergency alert button. When the alert is received, it additionally lets you record audio from the time of the alert.
While Naveen is the founder of several companies including Moon Express, Viome, Bluedot, TalentWise, Intelius, and InfoSpace; Anu is the co-founder of InfoSpace.

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