Are you ready for a good story about the internet, one that doesn’t mention Twitter’s reality-censoring cesspool of snark or twerking TikTokers? About the internet’s power to connect all of us instantly? I sure am.
I recently had a Zoom call with Elizabeth Smart—yes, that Elizabeth Smart, who in 2002 was abducted as a 14-year-old and held for nine months in Utah, a harrowing experience for her and her family. I once lost a son at Disneyland for three minutes and went out of my mind.
Ms. Smart not only is an advocate for missing children but is doing something about it. She told me 600,000 children go missing in the U.S. every year and that 98% of missing children are located within a few days. She noted that “after 48 hours, the chances of being found are almost zero, but obviously not zero in my case.”
Ms. Smart had good things to say about the Amber alerts posted on highway signs and blasted to cellphones, but pointed to their shortcomings. There is an age limit, and law enforcement needs a reasonable belief of imminent danger, so it is used rarely. Something else is needed. She connected with an Oregon-based tech company to help design and promote its Q5id Guardian app, which makes use of crowdsourcing. When a child is missing, the app sends out localized alerts to a network of volunteers, all verified to avoid potential predators on the system. “Remember,” she said, “I was found by everyday people paying attention, not law enforcement.”
The Guardian app launched in November. I asked Ms. Smart what makes her think it can be scaled to an effective size. “I believe in the goodness of people.” Amazing given her experience.
That goodness does exist. Wikipedia was enabled by digital crowdsourcing in 2001, but real-time volunteer networks started gaining traction in March 2014, when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370…
