Health-Conscious Citizen (HCC) App

A sedentary lifestyle and other urban diseases are considered to be the main problems of the twenty-first century. They are associated with a large number of automated technologies, increased working hours and the spread of passive entertainment culture.

HCC App is a universal phone application to promote to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Partner companies or application developers offer challenges, accomplishment of which is rewarded by points assigned to users. Challenges are related to improving physical or mental health, eating habits etc. Points earned for completing challenges can be used to pay in full or in part for purchases from partner companies. Used globally, this app can reduce the number of NCDs and motivate people to form healthy habits.

Nowadays cities are likely to suffer “urban diseases” including non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Rapidly emerged during past 20-30 years, NCDs are challenging the policy-makers, cities’ economics and the population of megapolices itself.  People now spend half of their waking time in sedentary activities. As stated in World Health Organization report, approximately 38 million people die annually from NCDs, representing 63% of the total global deaths from all causes. 

What is more, there exist significant economic implications: the cumulative economic losses would exceed US$ 7 trillion during 2011–2025. 
A concentrated outbreak of NCDs requires new solutions in order to cope with the delayed impact of dwindling activity of the population. An HCC App we suggest is devoted to struggle sedentary lifestyle, obesity, sleeping and mental disorders. Our aim is to motivate people to pursue an active lifestyle by using an app. 

Our target audience is people aged 25-45 living in large cities and having lower-middle, middle or upper-middle level of income.

All in all, we are aiming to inflience three crucial groups:

1. Partner companies using the app for marketing purposes will reach a wider audience, empower their brand with a health-friendly image. 

2. Citizens taking advantage of the app will obtain a new, financial type of motivation. Moreover, while completing the challenges, users will improve their health and get a habit of more rational nutritional practices. 

3. It also impacts the city: transport demand and traffic intensity can be reduced if users employ bicycles or walk to reach the destination. By supporting this measure city authorities get a healthier population, and this reduces the burden on the healthcare system while increasing the economic base and cities’ revenue through a longer active life of people at the same time. A business whose employees lead an active lifestyle eludes some of the losses associated with sick leaves or disabilities of the employees.

Our HCC App is an aggregator of various actions and events (challenges) promoting healthy lifestyle and launched by business.These challenges are provided by partners of the app such as private business or government departments etc. Collected points can be exchanged to discounts for goods or services following-up healthy lifestyle.

Why do people need to have a goal (here - material bonuses) to practice sport? There exist two sides of pursuing a goal -  psysical and spiritual. Physical side includes better health as regular psysical activities lead to  a better shape and knowledge of nutritional science improves general state  of health. But moreover, physical well-being is one of the reasons of good mental health owing to endorfins. Regular sport activities are also a cause  of employers' appreciations and socialization skills (doing sports in a team).

It is important give people a boost to make a "right choice" - healthy lifestyle. 

The app includes 4 sections:

• Food;

• Sport;

• Consciousness; 

• Health.

For instance, tasks can include:

• Food: eating healthy meals;

• Sport: gaining number of steps/ completing a workout;

• Consciousness: completing a meditation program;

• Health: doing checkups in the clinic.

Accumulated points can be spent on goods and services of partners,  as well as charitable contributions can be made, some of points can be spent on charity which can include charity marathones,activities and allocations to charity fonds.

Potentially attractive partners:

• Learning platforms suggesting courses on nutrition or other healthy lifestyle courses (Coursera, EdX);

• Sport facilities: equipment manufacturers (fitness bracelets, treadmills) etc.

• Fitness clubs, sports shops;

• SPA & Wellness locations:

• Healthy food services and cafes;

• Bookstores & publishing houses etc.

• Government departments responsible for health.

Overall we expect all the companies supporting healthy lifestyle to become a partner of an HCC App.

Technology

As soon as user downloads the HCC App, he/she inserts his parametrical data (weight, hight, age) and chooses his/her fitness level so the user can get challenges according to physical aptitude. Access to the data of mobile photos and step counters (and for instance IOS App Health), also to the data of fitness bracelets (if they exist) should also be provided. Challenges suggested by partners are divided to different levels of fitness level; there also rules you have to follow to accomplish the goal and get the material benefit.  Accomplishment can be proved by photos, fitness braslet and phone data. Collected data should be quantitative (number of steps, sleep hours, etc.).

A number-one novelty concerning the HCC app is new, highest level of collaboration between private sector and health-conscious citizens. Apps like HCC have already been launched but seemed to be sporadic marketing attempts to meet the eye of customers for the purpose of yield increase. Taking into consideration Moscow, a large megapolis, we can only name two sales promotions like this in ten years. Our goal is to create a platform, capable to combine both citizens’ demand in motivation to pursue a healthy lifestyle and business’ wish to attract the new audience by creating a positive brand image and holding events that can show the world their commitment to healthy lifestyle.

The HCC App is flexible and can be integrated into various city activities aiming to popularize healthy lifestyle and has the form of constructor or aggregator of different activities.

The core technology of the Health-Conscious Citizen app is collecting, storing, processing and analysing data. 

• Food - Challenges’ accomplishment is checked by using user-uploaded photos, which are checked by the neural network for plagiarism and for compliance with the tasks / there are moderators checking photos
• Sport - fitness bracelets data, entering information about the exercises in the built-in workout diary, using GPS data for running or cycling exercises;
• Consciousness - data on pulse activity, meditation diary, sleep diary;
• Health - anthropometric data: body weight, measuring the volume, the percentage of subcutaneous fat; medical examination diary

Many citizens desire to monitor their health, but they lack internal motivation for regular workouts in the gym, proper nutrition and actions to reduce anxiety. On the other hand, discounts and other material incentives can help people to find additional motivation for such activities, and the element of gamification introduced by challenges will make the infusion into such a lifestyle more fun. The main thing is to encourage people to engage in any activity and warm up their interest until this activity becomes a habit.

As we are only launching the project, we have not served anyone yet. In one year with a pilot version of the App we are expecting to serve 300-500 thousand of citizens of a large metropoly. Assuming the launch succeeds in five years the HCC app will cover at least 20 cities with the total audience of 20-25 millions of people.

Within the next year we are planning to conduct a market research, find potential partners and develop a pilot version of the HCC app;

within the next five years launch of a number of local versions of an HCC app is expected; moreover there will take place marketing of the product in order to extend the app to other cities and countries, app updates and development strategy adjustments.

We understand that launch of the HCC app is fraught with difficulties and is not straightforward; it is a very complex situation in terms of IT-technologies as how to avoid cheating on reward points and in terms of finding partners and investors. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to reflect and take into account all the specificities of local markets, that’s why market analysis should be as thorough as possible. 

First of all, to avoid the pitfalls concerning the features of a local market, we consider to assemble a team that includes local residents who are knowledgeable about the psychological behavior of the citizens of their country. Moreover, the business model of the App should be thoroughly developed and tested. To attract the investors and potential partners we are developing a clear and transparent model showing all the advantages (reputational + financial with the new audience) while participating in the app.

Four people full-time.

We are considering ourselves to be a part of target audience living in a megapolis which would like to use the HCC App if there exists a well-crafted reward system. We understand the request of the audience, we see the potential in the proposed idea and want to build a competent complementarity of the economic goals of business and local authorities with the personal desires of specific people.

A business that is interested in placing its own challenges will enter into a contract with the developers of the application, in which the payments are stated. Payments can be as lump sum bonus or paid dynamically - in proportion to the number of users of the application who are interested in the challenge and taking part in it. With a weak interest in any task, developers can for an additional fee use the tools to promote this challenge among users. When concluding long-term cooperation agreements, the amounts of payments become lower than usual.

The application is initially free for users, but has a paid pro-version with better deals and more complex challenges.

1. Reputational capital. In the modern world, the topic of health has become a trend: companies that support the fashion for health, fitness and proper nutrition, prove to be worth for a wide audience of consumers. In addition, partners and advertisers want to take part in a project aimed at maintaining and popularizing a fashion trend that will improve their own reputational capital. In this case, we are counting on a stable financial flow provided by this condition.

2. Competent marketing. Reputation needs to be built with the help of the right advertising and PR - it is necessary that as many potential consumers and partners as possible learn about you and about the principles that your company adheres to. Proper marketing is the best way to attract new customers and maintain the right image in the eyes of the public.

   3. We are going to start to involve several anchor investors which are to present their challenges. It makes our capital more stable. Other partners can be involved more flexibly and can change in accordance with needs and trends. 

As we are students studying Urban Planning, we are aiming to learn as much as possible about urban lifestyle problems and their solutions. Experience exchange seems to be very important and we are lucky to have a feedback on our ideas directly on a global level. We want to share our thoughts and develop our project in an attempt of solving difficulties considering urban health. It is extremely important for us to be the part of progressive society and seek solutions side by side.

Potentially attractive partners:

• Learning platforms suggesting courses on nutrition or other healthy lifestyle courses (Coursera, EdX);

• Appliance manufacturers - fitness bracelets, exercise equipment (treadmills) etc.;

• Fitness clubs;

• Sports shops;

• SPA & Wellness locations;

• Food delivery services,

• Healthy food cafes;

• Bookstores & publishing houses etc.