Future Now
The IFTF Blog
15 Ideas to Improve Global Health
If you imagine a healthy future, what does it look like? What will we have done to our bodies, networks, and environments to improve our collective well-being?
Last month, we asked the world these questions. IFTF's BodyShock is the
first annual competition with an urgent challenge to recruit
crowdsourced designs and solutions for better health—to remake the
future by rebooting the present.
Here are some of the ideas entered so far, in no particular order:
1. The Fecanator! Synthetic bacteria designed to help humans life on less food and produce less waste.
2. Thermo/visual gamma wave feedback monitor to help deepen meditation practices.
3. An easier-to-use operating system to help fight senior loneliness.
4. Heart Helper glove that squeezes hands to assist the heart in moving blood around.
5. A network of local fitness specialists that compete for your needs.
6. Condoms for Africa that incorporate features of traditional amulets.
7. A plan for expanding the practice of daily hugs to improve well-being.
8. Safer hospitals infected with good bacteria to out-compete the bad ones that often breed in hospitals.
9. A social, smart phone application to collect data and analyze personal health trends.
10. A videogame-style display to help people manage stress and maintain a healthy life.
11. Reversible Fertility Vaccine based on synthetic bacteria living in the reproductive system.
12. Paleo Approved Label to facilitate the practice of ancestral eating.
13. Simple adoption of bowing instead of shaking hands to reduce flu spread.
14. Software that can create 3-D cell-organ models from MRI data.
15. Healthy homes that include smart refrigerators, toilet analysis, and glucose meters.
Check out all the ideas and vote for your favorites, or enter your own idea! You can also tweet your favorite idea with the tag #BodyShock.
May the best health idea win!