Last Friday, senior Emma Negrete launched Snitch’n, an app she developed through the help of Simpson College’s EMERGE program.

The idea for Snitch’n came from her father, a detective with the Polk County Sherriff’s office, who needed an easier way to get anonymous tips from the community.

“It’s an app that helps law enforcement find wanted people,” Negrete said.

Officers put the criminal’s picture on the app with information such as first name, last name and crime so community members can swipe through the pictures and leave anonymous tips if they have any information.

“If you want, you can put your name in if you want to be contacted but otherwise it’s completely anonymous,” Negrete said.

Before Snitch’n was an app, it was an idea.

“My dad and I had no idea how to do computer programming, any of that stuff we just had this idea.”

Negrete had heard about EMERGE through professors and EMERGE’s Enactus venture so she got in contact with Chris Draper, EMERGE’s director.          Draper said, “What EMERGE is, is for any students or any faculty members, they can come and if they have an idea or a piece of technology, we can help them find the rest of their team and turn it into a sustainable business.”

Draper helped Negrete get in contact with computer programming and marketing students from Simpson to help create and market the app.

Currently Snitch’n is only partnered with the Fifth Judicial District so the app only shows offenders from the Des Moines area.

“We want to see how this runs with the judicial district and if everything works as planned we plan on going to other departments and then nation wide,” Negrete said.

The app is only available for Android phones through Google Play and Amazon but will hopefully be approved by the App Store soon.

Simpson’s EMERGE program is one of the only programs in the nation where students can actually practice their majors through business ventures instead of just learning through class material.

“So if you want to be the best marketing person on earth, this is an opportunity to actually practice the best marketing person you can be,” Draper said, “It is something that we can use to take control of our education as opposed to allowing our education to take control of us.”