Childhood Reality, Virtually Enhanced

EyeForkScience

Identification of Need

• Healthy People 2010 – Identified overweight and obesity as 1 of 10 leading health indicators and – Called for a reduction in the proportion of children and adolescents who are

overweight or obese, – The United States has made little progress toward the target goal.

• Results from 2007-2008 NHANES Study– Estimated 16.9% of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years are obese. – Between 1976-1980 and 2007-2008 , the prevalence of obesity increased.

• from 5.0% to 10.4%, among preschool children aged 2-5, • from 6.5% to 19.6% among those aged 6-11,

• Source: CDC. Ogden, et. al, Prevalence of Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963-1965 Through 2007-2008

Identification of Need

• Obesity Trends by Age Group

Company Mission

• To help reduce childhood obesity by providing a resource that gets the children and their parents out of house doing activities

• Secondarily to let children learn about and discover their community and world

• Services provided will focus on activity, not weight control

Services Provided

• Develop a website with games that require interaction with the world.

• Initial concept – EyeForkScience develops games and activities in the spirit of scavenger hunts that have

children, with their parent, locate items in their community.

– Accomplishment of task verified by photograph taken with digital camera/cell phone/etc. and uploaded to a website

– For younger children, this can be obvious but interesting things where the emphasis is on getting to somewhere, like the lion's den at the zoo.

– For older children the game can be more puzzling, with thing such as geo-caching or clues to solve.

• Website would – Regularly deliver activities

– Keep a record of achievements with in a fun environment

– Provide social networking of parents and children with each other and community resources such as schools, children’s museums, zoos, etc.

– Provide mechanism for physical world meeting and interactions

Additional Thoughts

• Make activities like a role-playing games with levels, etc. and but with real-world activities

• Move beyond finding objects to developing skills and over coming challenges.

• The achievements might follow a model like the boy or girl scouts, but for younger children.

• There could be a real world social element with teams that do activities together in physical reality with the company providing the framework and activities

Targeted Users

• Families with children aged 5-12

• Initially focused on the Columbus, OH area

• Families need access to a digital camera of some type. Could be cell phone

• Families need internet access

Size of Target User

• Columbus Population in 2010 = 787,033

• Percentage of Population between 5 and 18 =15.6%

• Population between 5 and 18 = 127,777

• Estimate of population between 5 and 12 = 68,803

• 1.87 average children per family with children under 18

• Estimate 36,793 target familiesSource: US Census Bureau (2010 Census)

Scalability

• If project works in Columbus, the model readily extends to other communities and cities

• Local component requires content development

– Need local staff

– Could license concept to other cities

• General web-framework readily extends

Potential Sources of Revenue

• Government money available for obesity prevention programs (e.g. NIH). Useful for development and launch. Possibly ongoing.

• Website could have free and premium levels (such as Fitbit)

• Local institution advertisement (art museum, children’s museum, zoo, etc.). Linked promotions.

• Other advertisement appropriate with mission.

Technological Risk

• The technological risk is very low

• The web technologies required are comparable to currently active websites.

• The image analysis for validation component either exists or is developable within current team’s skill set. Initially optional for launch.