Derae Shibata is from Makawao, Maui. She is a sophomore at the University of Hawaii Maui College majoring in Electronic & Computer Engineering Technology (ECET). She plans on graduating with her Associate of Science degree in May 2016, followed by her Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Engineering Technology. She plans on furthering her education by leaving her home town and continuing to get a Master of Science degree at the University of Washington. Upon graduation, she plans on returning to her beloved Maui and using her acquired knowledge to help the people of Hawaii through technological innovation and local production in renewable energy and/or sustainability. In her free-time she enjoys going to the beach and spending quality time with her friends and family.

Project Title: 911- Emergency Mobile App for People with Disabilities

Project Site: Akimeka LLC

Mentors: Tad Dicks & Rob Bartlett Co-Mentor: Jon Beck

Project Abstract: Out of the 63 million people with disabilities in the United States, 28 million are deaf or hard of hearing and thus have difficulty with conventional 911 services. The purpose of the project was to create an emergency mobile app prototype for users with either a permanent or temporary hearing disability. The app allows the user to send an automated text to 911 that includes the user’s pertinent information: disability, GPS coordinates, and nature of the emergency. The prototype was built using Apache Cordova, a platform for creating native mobile apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Little or no code needs to be changed when deploying Apache Cordova apps to different mobile devices. The next steps will be to implement Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specifications, which defines a way such as a screen reader to make web content applications more accessible to people with disabilities, and publishing the app in both Google Play and Apple App Stores.