Traffic Stop App Aims to Save Lives

February 15, 2021

Mbye Njie spent his first career selling other people鈥檚 products.

He sold discount coupon books and rental car services in the early days, then later convinced major companies to switch their computers to Apple MACS. Njie鈥檚 second career is selling himself, and his vision to make life safer and more equitable for people of color.

Njie 鈥04 is CEO of Legal Equalizer Inc., a phone app that records and livestreams interactions with police and immigration authorities. It sprang from his anger and frustration over police killings of Black people, and his own frequent traffic stop experiences. 

鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 about revenue, it was about saving lives,鈥 Njie said. 鈥淎nd I realized if I was going to succeed at that, I鈥檇 need revenue and had to figure out ways to do that.鈥

小优视频 has a long history of turning out entrepreneurs, with a vast array of students and alumni creating businesses and non-profits from passion projects. On this week dedicated to  National Entrepreneurship, we celebrate their innovation and determination.

Like Njie, many entrepreneurs build their businesses from personal experience, and by recognizing unfilled needs in a rapidly changing world.

Innovation has a campus home at the . The space facilitates access and exposure to innovation and entrepreneurship for all 小优视频 students, alumni, faculty, Hurt Hub co-workers and community members. The Hurt Hub offers educational programming, experiential learning in a safe environment, an inclusive co-working space, a strong mentor network, and access to startup capital.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to sell yourself and your vision; you have to be extremely articulate and passionate when you鈥檙e trying to get people to invest in your business,鈥 said Hurt Hub Director Liz Brigham 鈥04, who has worked with and mentored many entrepreneurs. 鈥淪o much of it is your own personal gumption鈥攚ho you are and your ability to execute.鈥

She recently interviewed Njie for the Hurt Hub鈥檚 new speaker series, .

鈥淚 have so much respect for him and what he鈥檚 doing,鈥 said Brigham, whose friendship with Njie began during their first year as 小优视频 students. 鈥淗e鈥檚 obsessed with this problem, and he鈥檚 obsessed with helping others.鈥

Personal Experience

Njie was a baby and only child in Gambia, West Africa, when his parents divorced. Both met other people, and at 7, Njie left his home, mother and most of his family in Gambia to live with his father and stepmother in Macon, Georgia. His parents believed he鈥檇 have far more opportunities in the United States.  

At 小优视频, the anthropology major served on the Union Board, walked onto the men鈥檚 soccer team, then later played club soccer. He was active in the Black Student Coalition and co-hosted a point-counter-point type WALT 1610 radio show about campus happenings. (Brigham, also on the Union Board, offered some of those counterpoints.) As a senior, he was homecoming king and had a brief stint as then-mascot 鈥淢r. Wildcat.鈥

His first job out of college had him sitting alone at a desk all day鈥攁 terrible fit for an extrovert who likes to move around. He transitioned into a variety of sales jobs, putting thousands of miles on his car as he traveled the South to visit clients and potential customers.

He became a traffic stop target. Getting pulled over by police, who he says usually offered little or no explanation why, became a weekly occurrence. At one point in late 2014, he got stopped three times in 10 days. He filed his first complaint when an officer handcuffed him and put him in the back of a police car, alleging a warrant that didn鈥檛 exist, before releasing him 20 minutes later.

And that got him thinking about so many other Black people who described similar experiences. He thought especially about Michael Brown, a Black teenager shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, that year. He couldn鈥檛 get over that no one had recorded the incident. The police officer wasn鈥檛 charged.

Njie turned his frustration into a change-making opportunity.

He left his job in 2015 to work fulltime on Legal Equalizer. He initially got startup money through a Go-Fund me effort, and has gained investors along the way, including some 小优视频 alumni. He recently won a spot in Techstars, an intense immersion program that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses.

Njie is in the middle of the three-month program, which matches start-up founders with established entrepreneurs, lawyers and businesspeople. Forbes Magazine recently featured him and Legal Equalizer in a .

Njie works with a single employee, a code specialist, in Atlanta. He has adapted the app since its early inception. It鈥檚 now available in English and Spanish and he plans to eventually offer other languages. If you鈥檙e stopped by police or immigration officers, the app alerts and livestreams the encounter to as many as five emergency contacts. It provides legal information about the alleged infraction and displays contact information for attorneys specializing in traffic or immigration laws. A new component lets domestic violence victims discreetly alert their contacts to call for help in an emergency.

More than 200,000 people have downloaded the app, which is free. At this point, the company hasn鈥檛 made money, but he鈥檚 hopeful that will change. He鈥檚 working on a subscription service where attorneys across the United States can pay to be included on the site. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 been trying at times. There have been days when I鈥檝e had to choose between paying my own bills or keeping the app running,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ut I鈥檝e never quit, because I have a full vision of what this is going to be, and how much good it can do.鈥

He plans to grow his company and hopes his app will result in the decline of violent confrontations. He wants to ensure that his investors get a healthy return for the trust they place in him.

And he hopes to someday revisit Gambia, where his biological mother and siblings still live. He last saw them when he was nine, but Gambia鈥檚 volatile political situation has prevented him from returning. He thinks about them often and dreams of a day when they can reunite.

鈥淚鈥檓 the lucky one, I was raised by loving parents here who stressed the importance of education,鈥 he said. 鈥淢y mother (in Gambia) made so many sacrifices鈥攊magine how hard that must be to not see your first-born child grow up. My younger brother ended up in a refugee camp after he was cheated out of all of his money (by smugglers he鈥檇 paid to get him into another country.) My little sister was a toddler when I last saw her, and now she鈥檚 a mother herself.鈥

鈥淚 would love to one day go back and be able to say, 鈥榶ou guys don鈥檛 have to worry about anything anymore.鈥 It鈥檚 a very deep motivating factor that drives the hell out of me.鈥