EviSafe is not just building AI, but also trust, safety, and hope

Eight ambitious AI startups have been selected to compete in the AI Pitch Competition. The finals are on November 13, 2025, and IO+ will portray each contestant in the run-up to that event. The AI Pitch Competition is a Brabant-based contest that highlights the most innovative AI solutions, offering startups the opportunity to present their ideas, connect with industry leaders, and accelerate their growth. Today, we show what EviSafe has in store for the world. Founder and CEO Naomi Hija answers our questions.

What specific AI technology is at the core of your solution?

"EviSafe tackles one of society’s most urgent issues: domestic violence and physical stalking. At its core, our solution uses GDPR-compliant, AI-driven linguistic analysis to detect early indicators of physical violence or escalating risk while safeguarding user privacy. Through Natural Language Processing (NLP), the app identifies linguistic cues to detect potential risk situations, while also recognizing predefined safe words that can silently trigger alerts or activate safety protocols.

Our proprietary system integrates this AI capability with the Support, Empowerment & Prevention (SEP) module: a digital framework that helps victims assess their level of risk, access essential resources, and regain control of their situation. Unlike traditional safety or reporting apps, EviSafe’s AI focuses on preventive intervention, helping users recognize danger early, act safely, and access support before violence escalates."

How scalable is your AI solution?

"EviSafe’s modular, AI architecture enables seamless scalability across municipalities, NGOs, and international jurisdictions, while ensuring full GDPR and regional data protection compliance. Our language-agnostic, culturally adaptive AI models make EviSafe deployable worldwide. The next step is to build trust and partnerships with governments, NGOs, and global institutions to drive large-scale adoption.

Having gained strong media attention in the Netherlands, we will now expand our outreach to international media to boost visibility and credibility. Through close collaboration with local authorities, NGOs, and experts, each deployment will remain ethical, culturally relevant, and sustainably scalable."

How does your startup address potential ethical concerns related to bias, fairness, or transparency in AI decision-making?

"EviSafe is founded on fairness, transparency, and user autonomy. Our technology enables victims to safely gather evidence and access trusted resources, promoting transparency in domestic violence and stalking cases. Users always retain full control over their data.

To uphold ethical standards, our AI is trained on diverse, anonymized, and ethically sourced data, co-designed with survivors and behavioral experts to minimize bias. Continuous bias testing helps prevent gender or cultural bias, ensuring that all AI insights are designed to empower victims."

In what ways do you believe your AI solution can positively impact society?

EviSafe empowers individuals to break cycles of abuse through early awareness, secure evidence storage, and access to local support. Victims can discreetly document incidents, trigger silent alerts, and connect with trusted “Guardians” for immediate assistance. Beyond personal safety, EviSafe helps restore autonomy, reduce long-term trauma, and strengthen institutional responses.

We believe AI can be a force for a safer and more just society. To prevent misuse or overreliance on technology, we ensure clear communication, consent-based design, and human oversight. By combining AI insights with tangible evidence, such as photos, videos, and personal notes, we enhance reliability and accountability while safeguarding user trust."

Tell us more about your entrepreneurial journey

"Our biggest challenge was balancing innovation with survivor safety. Traditional data collection could expose users, so we built an end-to-end encryption to ensure no sensitive data leaves the device. In the fast-paced AI landscape, we focused on developing AI technology that ensures both the physical and digital safety of victims.

Breaking away from conventional approaches to victim support was not easy. We are pushing boundaries and setting a new standard for how technology can empower and protect survivors. Our MVP was largely self-funded, and with a small, dedicated team, we worked tirelessly over the past two years to build trust and credibility. This persistence led to our first partnerships with the municipalities of The Hague and Eindhoven; key milestones that validate our vision and commitment to systemic change."

© EviSafe

Regulation and Compliance: How are you preparing for the increasing regulatory frameworks around AI, such as GDPR, AI Act, or other data privacy laws?

"EviSafe is fully aligned with GDPR and proactively preparing for the EU AI Act. We apply privacy-by-design and security-by-default principles across all development stages to ensure data protection from the ground up. Regular Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs), and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) help us maintain state-of-the-art compliance.

We collaborate closely with cybersecurity partners and legal experts to continuously monitor and meet evolving privacy and AI regulations. This rigorous approach safeguards user trust and enables us to innovate responsibly, positioning EviSafe as a standard for ethical AI in the social impact sector."

Future vision: What is your long-term vision for your AI solution?

"Our vision is to evolve EviSafe into a global, AI-driven evidence platform and mobile app that empowers victims of domestic violence and physical stalking. We aim to continuously expand and refine our AI models to enhance situational awareness, behavioral analysis, and personalized support, always through a human-centric and trauma-informed approach.

Over the next 5–10 years, we plan to integrate predictive analytics and community-level insights to help cities and governments identify patterns of violence early, while fully safeguarding individual privacy. EviSafe strives to become the trusted global standard for ethical and human-centered AI in safety tech, creating safer societies worldwide."

What opportunities does your location give you? What is still missing in the ecosystem you are part of?

"Being based in the Netherlands provides access to a strong ecosystem of social innovation, research collaboration, and municipal partnerships. The country increasingly recognizes the urgency of addressing gender-based and domestic violence, a need underscored by recent femicide cases that have sparked national awareness and action. Our current partnership with the municipality of Eindhoven has also created interest from other cities in Brabant, such as Veldhoven and Breda.

We benefit from the region’s progressive tech-for-good initiatives and close ties with universities and local governments. However, what’s still missing is dedicated early-stage funding and long-term investment to help mission-driven startups like EviSafe scale ethical, high-impact technology solutions."

The AI Pitch Competition: Why will you win this contest?

"EviSafe combines cutting-edge AI with human-centered ethics to protect those most at risk. We go beyond safety, our technology empowers victims to act, collect evidence discreetly, and break cycles of abuse. We offer an AI solution that saves lives, strengthens communities, and redefines what responsible technology can achieve. EviSafe will win because we’re not just building AI, we are building trust, safety, and hope."