The tragic death of a six-year-old girl who fell into an open artesian well in Tabuk almost a year ago has inspired innovation of a different kind.

A new, up and coming company has come up with an app that detects open wells in an unprecedented bid to avert tragedy and create awareness.

Users can then capture a snapshot of the open well and add it to the app’s database for other users and authorities to take note of.

The app was “aptly” named after little Lama Al-Rouqi, who had been out picnicking with her family when she fell more than 30 meters into the 100-meter-deep and half-a-meter-wide well. The dream team behind the app have even upgraded systems to include sewage tanks after a young boy and his father perished as the latter tried to rescue his son, who had fallen into an open manhole.

With the new addition, the number of users have increased by over 1,000 within merely a week.

The company behind the invention, which is just shy of its first anniversary, was created through the support of a technological entrepreneurship program under the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).

A team of four highly skilled employees at Waqood Tech will manage the mobile app, available for download on both the iOS and Android systems.

The app itself was designed by Abdullah Asiri, a graduate of several renowned universities, including Virginia Tech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell and KAUST, and was developed by himself and a colleague at the company. Asiri, Mohammed Khan, Kassem Bagher and Mohammed Milyani are using social media to promote their newest invention and spread the word, mostly through Twitter and Instagram.