By Dave Paone
Campus News
The world can be a scary place. Violent crimes happen every day and let’s face it, they can happen on college campuses.
But Siena Rampulla, who’s working on an MBA at Rowan University in New Jersey, has created an app that she hopes will make countless college students throughout the nation safer.
She calls it PULLATracker, and as is almost every other app, it’s used on a smartphone.
How It Works
For a young, female college student, the walk from a building to her car alone, after dark, can be frightening. This is the sort of scenario where she’s extremely vulnerable.
With the PULLATracker app, according to Siena, if there’s a perceived threat, the potential victim can hold her finger on a button (either fire, ambulance or police), and when the threat has terminated, lift her finger and enter a code that means all is well.
If a threat turns into an assault, once her finger is removed from the button, the app contacts 911 with the user’s location, name and which emergency responder she needs via text.
There’s no need to preprogram emergency services into the phone because as long as the GPS is running, the app will know which local 911 to contact and the authorities will have the user’s exact coordinates, as well as her preprogrammed emergency contacts.
Siena believes in a situation such as a frat party, where no one wants to be the uncool, “snitch” to call for help, the app will allow them to do so silently.
Siena recalled an on-campus party where things got out of hand. “And everyone was scared to call the police because there was underage drinking at the party,” she said.
“When it comes to PULLATracker, they can spare their reputation” by calling for help on the down low.
It’s Not Just for Women
While the majority of the app’s intended users are women (the company logo is a giant, pink P), Siena believes men can benefit from it as well.
“A lot of the time there’s judgment among male students having an app to keep them safe – that they’re not macho enough to make everyone safe themselves. That’s unfair; that’s so unfair,” she said.
Siena believes the app will give them “a judgment-free way to keep themselves protected.”
Early Life and College
Siena was born in Staten Island, New York but grew up in Holmdel, New Jersey.
“H-O-L-M-D-E-L. I was a cheerleader, so we had to say that a lot,” Siena said with a straight face.
Siena earned her BA (magna cum laude) in psychology with a minor in journalism, an honors concentration, and an Italian certificate of undergraduate study from Rowan in 2023, and is in her first year of the MBA program, with a concentration in entrepreneurship.
At Rowan Siena joined a sorority and is currently a senior mentor of the CEO club. It’s not a club for chief executive officers, but the letters stand for Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global entity for college students.
A Close Call
Siena lived in an on-campus dormitory for her first two years of college but spent most of her undergraduate residence in a rented, off-campus house, which is quite a distance from the campus.
It was there she shared her abode with three other sorority sisters and two other female students.
“We were so far away from campus that we were seen as total commuters,” said Siena.
She believes someone followed one of her sisters to the house because of the sorority sticker on her car.
After a series of events (including a pushed-in basement window), the perpetrator was found by a K-9 unit hiding under their kitchen sink. Siena’s mail and one of her housemate’s underwear were found in his car.
Siena believes he knew the house would be empty during spring break because he followed them all on Instagram and she thinks he was in the house on several occasions.
In an eerily similar scenario, four University of Idaho students were living in an off-campus house where they were stabbed to death – possibly in their sleep – in 2022.
“I feel so bad for the survivor of that,” said Siena. “Once the security and safety of the home you’re living in is compromised, you never feel safe again.”
Her own experience, combined with her knowledge of crimes against college students throughout the country, led to her conclusion that, “A lot of people target college students.”
Siena’s entrepreneurial senses kicked in and she conceived the idea for the app, although an earlier incarnation of it came to her while studying in Florance, Italy.
What’s in a Name?
“For my first entrepreneurship journey, I wanted to create something with my name in it,” she said. “SIENATracker sounded weird. RAMTracker sounded a lot weirder.”
So PULLATracker it is.
Conceiving a product is free. Getting it made and marketed costs money.
Siena found her seed money by winning first place and $30,000 in the 2023 Rohrer New Venture Competition in April, the highest amount they’ve ever awarded to a student. She was one of five finalists.
The Team
While Siena conceived the app, the code was written by Connor O’Leary, whom she found through a software developer matchmaking service.
PULLATracker, LLC has a small staff of interns, all students at Rowan, each working for a semester.
Currently there are two sophomores, one junior and one senior. The junior and senior are each receiving three credits. The other two are not due to an age restriction.
Senior Madison Stein’s official title is digital marketing and journalism intern, but she feels it’s essentially public relations, which suits her just fine because she’s going to pursue a career in marketing.
Her internship ends in May and will be considered a three-credit marketing class.
Madison thinks the app is very practical and necessary.
“I am part of a sorority on campus and I hear all these crazy stories about how girls I know – and other people I don’t even know – how they feel uncomfortable on campuses, and I think that just having this on your phone will give people a sense of security,” she said.
“Right now we do have those light-up poles – the blue ones – that you can press and public safety will come to you but when you really do think about it, those aren’t super practical because they’re not everywhere – they’re not off-campus – and if someone’s following you, you’re not just going to stand at a pole and wait for someone,” she said.
What’s Next
The app will be officially launched this month. If an individual wants to use it, she will pay for it herself. However, Siena plans to have colleges purchase accounts in bulk at a discounted price, allowing students to have access while enrolled.
Siena said Rowan’s dean of students is already on board and she’s in talks with a few more colleges.
“I – at the end of the day – just think that every student needs to be protected,” Siena said.
“And then March first is actually the start of Women’s History Month, so I thought it would be a perfect time to release my app.”
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