A police officer hands an abducted child back to his mother in Zunyi, Southwest China's Guizhou province, Oct 25, 2011. [Photo by Wu Dongjun/Xinhua]

Zhengzhou Ruijie Network Technology, a Chinese company from Zhengzhou city, in Henan province, recently started an online crowdfunding program with the aim of getting at least 1 million yuan ($161,100) in the next three months. The money would be used to launch a smartphone application to help find missing children in the country, according to Li Jie, the app's creator.

The app is called "Ruijie Xunzi", where "xunzi" is a Chinese term used to describe the act of looking for one's child.

"I want to help parents find their missing children by using advanced technology," Li told a media conference in Beijing recently.

He learned from the experience of the United States, where there are several national response systems for people to find missing children. He will launch a national database for missing children, with information on their facial features, fingerprints and DNA.

Facial recognition technology will be used to help parents disseminate information on their missing children online. Users of social media would also be able to provide feedback to parents through the app.

Zhengzhou Ruijie has been developing HTML5, Android and iOS versions of the app and will officially launch them once the fund-raising target is met, Li said.

Details of the crowdfunding program are available on zhongchou.com.

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