Kenza el Hassnaoui, Saifeddine Boujeddaine, Ryan van Vuure and Hazma el Bouazzati are members of a Calandlyceum team in Amsterdam, with whom Catswoppr collaborates. The Technasium is a science program in which the students follow the subject R&D (Research and Design), a subject in which students do assignments for companies and organizations for a concept that needs to be researched or designed. Within technasium education, students develop the competencies and skills that are required in science technology, such as creativity, entrepreneurship, collaboration, inventiveness, communication, planning, project-based work, organization, and process-and-knowledge-oriented work.
The team believes, as does Catswoppr, that every cat in the world has the right to a good life, and they want to contribute to that. More awareness needs to be raised for cats. The main goal is to give back to the cats. People buy cats to cuddle with, have someone waiting for them when they return home or to cheer them up after a rough day. Cats have been there for us for centuries. It is time for us to be there for them, so as to return the favour. It is bad for an owner to lose their cat, but it is even worse for the cat to lose their home.
Nowadays, there are a lot of cat owners and the risks of losing their cat are very high. With a global cat population of roughly 600 million, approximately 370 million cats are actually kept as pets. In the Netherlands, there are currently 2.6 million cats kept as pets. In 2020, 78.332 pets went missing in the Netherlands, most of them were cats (62.499). Of the missing cats with a chip, 77% were found. Only 22% of the cats without a chip were found. Therefore, what are the most effective methods for locating lost cats?
When cats go missing, there are a variety of explanations why they cannot be found. This is due to a variety of factors. Firstly, relatively few cats have ID tags. Secondly, microchips are often not registered or kept up-to-date. Thirdly, owners tend to wait longer to check the shelter and do so less frequently. Finally, unless a cat is sick or injured, most people assume a stray cat is not lost and lives somewhere nearby, so they are not reported or sent to a shelter. You can use different tools to find cats. But what are the most efficient and effective tools with the best rate of success?
With that in mind, the team came up with the idea to utilize existing online and offline platforms and channels for finding lost cats and to design a tool to combine them all. Their goal is to develop an app where you can find your cat at the touch of a button! So, stay tuned for the final product!
