A falcon for the walk home.

Nine in ten women in the UK report feeling unsafe walking at night. If you have ever texted a friend "let me know when you're home," the product you actually wanted did not exist yet.

1. The walk-home problem is a British problem too.

Recent government-published polling puts the number at 88 per cent of women who have felt unsafe walking at night. One in two feels unsafe on a quiet street near their own home after dark. Four in five feel unsafe walking alone in a park or open space. (Active Travel England, 2026) These are not abstract statistics. They are the reason friends coordinate taxis, share live locations, and re-route home.

The Office for National Statistics adds context. For the year ending March 2025, eight per cent of sexual-assault victims report the incident happened in a park, other open public space, car park or on the street. (ONS, 2025) Outdoor space is where personal-safety technology has to work.

2. What existing safety tech misses.

Personal alarms make noise. Live-location apps tell your friend where you were. Neither of these deters the person walking behind you. Neither of them makes the walk feel different in the moment.

Meanwhile, the cost of self-mitigation is real. Plan International UK found 62 per cent of girls and young women aged 14-21 take taxis home at least once a month specifically to avoid nighttime risks, spending an average of £528 per year each. (Plan International UK, 2025) That is a safety tax paid by the person who did nothing wrong.

3. What a personal-launch drone actually does.

Baaj — the Punjabi word for falcon — is a phone-case drone. Press once and a small quadcopter lifts off, hovers above you, tracks your position and streams. A visible aerial presence changes the incentive of anyone thinking of approaching. That is not our theory. It is the design principle that NASA's AEGIS proposal for Aerial Escort Guardian Intelligence explicitly cites — an on-site aerial presence functions as a deterrent, and can alert emergency services even when the person on the ground cannot speak. (NASA Technical Reports Server, 2025)

Campus safety operators already use a related pattern. Talkaphone's 2025 integration with Sunflower Labs pairs an emergency call point with an autonomous escort drone, dispatched the moment a button is pressed. (Campus Safety Magazine, 2025) The core idea is the same. A pair of eyes above you changes the walk.

4. Why phone-case form factor matters.

Any personal-safety product that lives in a bag will not be there when you need it. Any device you have to remember to charge separately, remember to carry, and remember to activate will be forgotten twice a week. The phone case is the only wearable that is already in your hand at the moment you would want it.

The best personal-safety device is the one you did not have to remember to bring.

Baaj sits in the case. When you press the launch button, the drone releases, spools up, and takes off. When you put your phone down for the night, it charges through the case. You are not adding a habit. You are upgrading a habit you already have.

5. Where we are, and what "pilot" means.

Baaj is pre-launch. We are opening pilot signups through the SOS Labs waitlist. Pilot means we work with the first cohort on real routes — campus walks, night shifts, patrols where the HSE's lone-worker guidance already asks for a communication and escalation path (HSE INDG73, 2025) — and iterate against what actually happens on the pavement. Not what we imagine happens.

The trade.

You are trusting a small, early-stage device with the walk home. In exchange, you get an aerial witness that arrives in a second, from a launch platform that is already in your pocket. If that sounds like the missing piece, the waitlist is where to start.

Sources.

1. Active Travel England — Nationwide plans announced to design safer streets as 9 in 10 women report feeling unsafe walking at night (2026).
2. Office for National Statistics — Nature of sexual assault by rape or penetration, England and Wales (2025).
3. Plan International UK — Safety tax: Girls spend hundreds each year to avoid nighttime dangers (2025).
4. NASA Technical Reports Server — AEGIS: Aerial Escort Guardian Intelligence System (2025).
5. Campus Safety Magazine — Talkaphone Emergency Phone + Autonomous Drone Integration (2025).
6. HSE — Protecting lone workers: How to manage the risks of working alone (INDG73) (2025).