Imvisible a product with a positive impact on society!

After 10 years in the cultural sector, Suzan joined the bootcamp in order to learn how to code and develop positive impact products. During the project weeks, she develops imvisible with her team. Once graduated, she decides to continue to make live after the Wagon. Her ambition is to expand the network around the world.

"We hope to expand our network over the next months and do user research to modify the platform so it serves our users’ needs. We are seeking funding to hire a developer and graphic designer."

Can you introduce yourself to our community?

My name is Suzan, I am originally from Amsterdam and I graduated from Le Wagon Mexico in September 2020. I worked for 10 years in the cultural sector before making a career change to being a web developer. During the Le Wagon I discovered that I like to develop products that through tech have an impact on (civil) society.

Tell us about your app and what it does?

I started imvisible as my demo day product. It is an online platform that allows women to protest against sexual harassment on public transport. It gives a platform for women to raise their hand against daily harassment and it serves as a place where data can be collected to make governmental changes. In Mexico City, where the app is now available, 93% of women have been harassed while traveling on public transport and 77% of them say they did not report the incidents. Having the fear of harassment is limiting the freedom of women every day and I believe they should have the right to protest against this every day.

What were the challenges you encountered building your app? And then when you decide to develop your project in the real world?

One of the big challenges both while making the app and still nowadays is how to work with the coordinates of the incident location. We decided to use an API from the Mexico City government to connect all the coordinates of stations to our database. This is great because it frames the issues of harassment to the parameters of public transport, but it also means that it excludes a lot of locations around or between stations where protesting is not possible. Another big challenge we face now is that we need to build a trustworthy ‘brand’. It is super important that women feel at ease when coming to our website and trust the intentions of imvisible. We work on this by organizing events and talks and by reaching out to users to have qualitative research.

"It is super important that women feel at ease when coming to our website and trust the intentions of imvisible"

Tell us a little about your background and how you discovered Le Wagon?

I worked for 10 years for museums, galleries and design studios. I absolutely love the cultural sector, but it is an industry that struggles in terms of innovation. This became even more clear in covid times. The sector is hit hard and needs to bridge to the digital world. This realization made me want to shift my focus to something that could be very important in culture in the coming years; preserve the sector by giving opportunities of developing online presence alongside the physical presence. This is the reason why I chose Le Wagon. It seemed like the perfect program where I could learn about developing products and take those skills to implement them for non-profits and cultural institutions.

What are your future plans for your app?

We hope to expand our network over the next months and do user research to modify the platform so it serves our users’ needs. We are seeking funding to hire a developer and graphic designer. It would be amazing if we can launch imvisible outside of Mexico City and in different cities around the world in a few months.

Any advice for those who still hesitate to join the Wagon?

I really had no idea how to start my career as a product founder and developer. I was completely overwhelmed with all the languages and options out there. Joining Le Wagon was great because in a short time you learn so much and it really gives you the base to explore from there. If I had not done Le Wagon I would have been very lost on where to start and learning the same amount would have taken me a year for sure.

Don't miss any informations about imvisible, follow them on: