A new app aims to make finding missing children in the most populated country in the world a little bit easier and more of a collective effort.

Advertising agency JWT China and missing children site Baby Back Home have jointly developed an app in China that utilizes facial-recognition technology to help identify missing or kidnapped kids, Creativity Online reported. The organizations say that, with a population reaching approximately 1.4 billion, everyone can be a search volunteer.

Users of the app can take a photo of a child they think is lost on their phone. The app then uses facial-recognition technology to identify matches with a missing persons database. If a match is found, the family is notified. Within one week of the app's launch, there were 20,000 downloads and two children were reunited with their families, according to JWT.

SEE ALSO: How Social Media Can Reunite Lost Children With Their Families

A number of interactive sculptures were also installed in Chinese public places where families often go, according to the organizations. When people take a smartphone picture of the sculpture, using augmented-reality technology, real life stories of missing children are shown on the phone.

Watch the video about this initiative below, and let us know what you think in the comments. Do you think a missing kids app like this might be effective in your country?

Thumbnail and lead image via iStockphoto, mstay.