Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Announcing the BodyShock Winners!
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 1st annual BodyShock The Future competition. With 109 design entries, it was tough to narrow it down to the winning 5 ideas! Here they are, in alphabetical order, with the grand prize winner still to be announced:
Anjna Patient Education
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Anjna Patient Education is the first organization of its kind to specifically target free clinics and reach out to socioeconomically disadvantaged patients. Studies have shown that common diseases such as type II diabetes, hypertension, and depression are heavily prevalent amongst patients from the lowest socioeconomic tier, and that patient education is 50-80% more effective when compared to medication or conventional therapy. Through the distribution of high-quality health education materials and the development of training modules, our project seeks to empower patients in free clinics to take a stand against these preventable diseases with good nutrition, diet, and lifestyle changes.
by: Vineet Singal
Play It! Say It! Can gaming support mental health?
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PLAY IT! SAY IT! is simple - we propose to use the existing communication functionalities of video game consoles (voice chat and messaging) to provide phone and online counselling to the people who use them. The online video game community is larger than the population of Canada, and at least one 1 in 5 people playing have a mental health condition. Beyond the existing benefits of online and phone counselling, consoles offer universal access points to ensure coverage, and the opportunity to develop rapport while playing simple games to support the sharing of concerns. We value quality of life.
by: Elizabeth Ure, Andrew Shaw & Adam Bass
The Recovery Project
The Recovery Project would organize people's personal narratives of recovery so that they can be best learned from by others. By letting patients see what others have done and by creating high-level meta-narratives, patients can see the decision trees that others have used, saving time in creating their own from scratch. Sharing and reading similar narratives provides an affective component to possibilities for personal health -- critical when conditions require changes of habit. And experts and practitioners will be able to contribute their stories of helping patients recover, integrating various medical professions' perspectives, instead of creating a divide.
by: Michael Nagle
Thrive Portion Ware
Thrive portion control ware's cups and plates help steer people to eat 20% less per meal. It works subtly and subconsciously to enable people to eat and drink less. Plate will tip if user places food in the red zone. Control words are on back of plate so users will see "restraint" or "will power" every time they pick one up from a dish rack or cupboard. Cup is quartered off as well, so users drink 20% less no matter what the beverage is. People can consciously consume less. Thrive Portion Ware enables people to do just that.
by: Sally N.
zedAlert - Sleep better. Sleep more. Sleep smarter.
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With numerous harmful effects on disease, obesity, safety, creativity, cognition, productivity, happiness, and more, sleep deprivation is one of the biggest, yet most under-appreciated health crises of modern times. zedAlert is an iPhone application currently under development by two Stanford students, together with faculty from the Stanford School of Medicine. It records user sleep data and uses mathematical models to determine the optimal times for each individual to sleep, in order to maximize restfulness. zedAlert also tracks sleep debt, provides push notification alerts, assists with diagnosis of sleep disorders, and offers many other tools for comprehensively improving sleep health.
by: Stephanie Liou and Stewart Macgregor-Dennis
IFTF would like to invite you all to join us at the BodyShock Winners' Celebration. Come and hear presentations from the top 5 winners of the BodyShock competition, enjoy some refreshments, meet the judges, and see who will win the $3,000 Roy Amara Prize for Participatory Foresight!
When: October 8, 2010, from 6 - 8 p.m.
Where: IFTF's office (124 University Ave, 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA)
We hope you will join us at this event and be inspired by new ideas to BodyShock the Future of health! Please RSVP here.