This mobile app is helping Afghans navigate Kabul following the Taliban takeover

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As the Taliban entered Kabul last month, the team behind the crowdsourced news alert app Ehtesab deserted their office in the city.

Days later, when two suicide bombing explosions killed more than 70 people near Kabul's Hamid Karzai Airport as people frantically tried to evacuate, the startup used its contacts on the ground to confirm the twin attacks within minutes.

"The main focus has been, obviously, providing reports that affect Afghans' access to food, access to banks, access to movement," Sara Wahedi, Ehtesab's 26-year-old founder who is leading the team of Kabul staffers from New York while she completes degrees in human rights and data science at Columbia University, told CNN Business.

"I was really confused by the fact that there was no platform ... where you could find verified, real-time information about what was going on in the city, especially a city which is consistently reeling with instability," Wahedi siad."It just seemed so odd to me that there was no structure. It wouldn't cost much to implement something like that."

Users submit reports through the app in one of five categories: security, traffic, electricity, corruption and other. The app instructs users to provide information, including location, a written description and a photo or video. Once verified by at least two sources, the app displays reports on a map of Kabul and adds updates as more information is available.Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Ehtesab's work has become not only more dangerous but also more challenging.

 

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