We're on a mission to make sure every student has real help within reach

I'm the father of three daughters. As each one left home for college, I found myself living through the same ritual. My oldest lived in a sorority house — parking was never nearby, so every evening she had to walk back alone after dark. Without fail, she would call me as soon as she got out of her car. We would stay on the phone until she was safely inside. That became our nightly routine. Not because she was overly cautious or I was overprotective, but because until she walked through that front door, none of us felt completely at ease.

When my second daughter left for college in New York City, those concerns only grew. When my youngest enrolled at the University of Delaware, orientation leaders proudly pointed out blue emergency phones across campus and talked about new mobile safety apps. On paper, both seemed like progress.

But nothing changed. She still called when she left her part-time job at night. She still called after leaving the library. She still called whenever she had to walk back to her apartment alone. The blue light phones didn't change her behavior. Neither did the apps.

Then, years after my daughters graduated, I kept hearing the same stories from friends and family. Their kids were heading off to college, and they had the same worries, the same late-night phone calls, the same quiet anxiety. Every conversation brought it rushing back. I started researching. And I found that nothing had changed. The same blue lights. The same apps with the same fundamental flaw. The gap between what students needed and what existed had only grown more obvious.

I knew I could do better.

The core problem was clear to me: in a frightening moment, students were expected to unlock their phone, find the right app, open it, navigate through menus, and ask for help. Under stress, that process takes around eleven seconds. Fear affects fine motor skills, decision-making, and the ability to perform even familiar tasks. The very moment students need help the most is the moment technology asks the most of them.

One question kept demanding an answer: with all the technology we carry every day, how can the best we've given students still be an app that takes too long or a blue light they may be nowhere near?

Over the next two years, that question became an obsession. We designed, tested, rejected, and redesigned — building five different prototypes before arriving at what would become SafeLine. Every decision came back to one principle: when someone is frightened, they don't need another app to unlock and navigate. They need the fastest, simplest way possible to connect with a real person who can help. They need help that's already with them.

I built SafeLine to be that. A device that's always on the student's phone, simple enough to use under stress, and designed to connect them to a live agent in seconds. Built to give students the confidence to go about their lives. To give parents peace of mind. And to give universities a better way to protect the people in their care.

What began as my worry for three daughters has become our mission: because no parent should have to wonder if their child made it home safely, and no student should ever face a frightening moment alone.