15 year old Israeli teenager and his friend build a rocket-fire alarm android app

The threat of constant incoming missiles/rocket fire is a sad reality in Israel so much so that there are such things as rocket alarms that everyone in the country should know about.

Rocket alarms in Israel are basically overseen by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Home Front Command, and are largely broadcast on TV and every conceivable means of public announcements.

Although the Home Front Command encourages the use of its official app, it stated that new apps developed by private entities could serve as potential additions to help keep Israelis safe.

Nir Vaknin, a 15-year-old Israeli teenager and his developer Itai Goli, a resident of Ness Ziona, spent several months developing a new cutting edge rocket alarm app, receiving assistance from the IDF’s Home Front Command. The app runs on Android powered devices allowing users on streaming media to receive on-screen rocket alerts on their screen in real-time.

Nir Vaknin who is a resident of Sderot told Israeli news site Mako that he usually received rocket alarms 30 seconds too late when using streaming devices. People in Sderot only have an average of 15 seconds to get to safety from the moment the alarm sounds until the rockets crash into their community. As a result, delays in rocket alerts make the difference between life and death.

“I am neither a military man nor the chief of staff and of course I am not the prime minister, I cannot present a solution, so I made an app to better deal with the situation,” the teenager said.

The new app can be programmed to display alarms for specific regions or cities. The teenage inventors are already in talks with the Israeli transport ministry and the National Road Safety Authority in a plan to install the new app on public buses to alert drivers entering hot zones of rocket fire.