Border Buddy sounds kind of cute. In reality, it's an app with a serious purpose: to help Muslim travelers, or really anyone, worried about being held by Customs and Border Patrol agents after landing in the U.S. on a flight from abroad.

Mohammad Khan is a co-creator of the app, which is still in development. He's also the campaign manager of MPower Change, a Muslim grassroots organization, and is often pulled aside after flights, sometimes for hours. 

"What I've done is I've taken to the habit of texting people I know, like lawyers or activists or other people, before I fly, letting them know what time I'm landing," Khan said on Tuesday.

Along with his business partner Andrew Gionfriddo, Khan had just finished presenting their idea at the NYC Big Apps competition, which provides funding and legal services to winning ideas. While Border Buddy did not end up winning the contest, Kan and Jionfriddo hope their idea will eventually become "a Legal Aid for international travelers."

"We want this to be a deterrent to Customs and Border Patrol," said Khan, "to not continue with some of the abuses we've been seeing over the past few decades."

Beyond legal services, he said, the app should provide peace of mind to people who worry they'll disappear from view, without anyone knowing.