Modern Australian
The Times

Parents use app to share the parenting overload

  • Written by Candice Meisels


Easy, safe and guilt-free solution to conquer and cope with the family’s schedule.

 

Australia, 31st January 2018It takes a village to raise a child. Our lives are busier than ever and parents cannot be in two places at once. This is why Melbourne Mum, Maggie Scott founded Parachuute, an app that alleviates parental stress by co-ordinating help between the village. Parachuute is a mobile App that enables families to use their trusted networks to solve their kids’ transport needs.
 
Maggie has two kids. She still does 13 car trips per week even with carpooling.
In Australia there are 3.8 million school aged kids creating 4.5 million car trips per day. 

 
It takes 20 seconds to request a lift or offer a spare seat. Once accepted, the app takes care of the rest, including reminders, location information and even navigation.

 
Parachuute Founder, Maggie Scott says: “I wanted to provide a safe and easy alternative to traditional carpooling and favour giving. Parachuute is a guilt-free way to ask for help through a personal, trusted network.”
 
Maggie adds: “Parachuute is safe because parents decide who to add to their network. They choose from parents they have got to know through school or sports. These people aren’t strangers to them or their kids. Parachuute is also easy. It takes just 20 seconds for parents to request a lift from people in their network. Once a request has been accepted the app takes care of everything including notifications, reminders, locations and navigation.
Parachuute is guilt-free. Parents exchange points in the form of a virtual currency within Parachuute for favours. Points have a value, meaning they reward those that help and reduce the obligation parents can feel to reciprocate a favour one-on-one.”



The app was successfully piloted in 2017.
 
The Parachuute app is free to download and there are no subscription fees.
 
www.parachuute.com
 
The app can be downloaded here:
 
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/parachuute/id1193783258?mt=8 , https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parachuute.app

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