The Center for Health Analytics, part of the Columbia University Data Science Institute, is announcing Lions’ Tracks, an app design competition to support quantified self and facilitate sharing of tracking health-related information across the Columbia research community for advancing health research.
Activity tracking, from step counting to heart rate monitoring and sleep pattern detection, is now monitored by many entities through personal commodity devices like smartphones and wearable devices. Yet, value from this raw information is limited. Most existing apps and devices have limited sharing mechanisms, preventing individuals from independently exploring and making sense of their own data, and hindering the research community's ability to leverage these data. Furthermore, while some data streams (e.g., steps, sleep) have already been considered by proprietary devices and apps, there are many other data types left to explore.
The successful app will allow Columbia community members to sign up as users to a community-wide sharing environment, where their data will be available to Columbia researchers and potentially to other users, e.g., by social network proximity. Potential challenges a submission might focus on include, but are not limited to:
Requirements and Evaluation Criteria
Rules
Activity tracking, from step counting to heart rate monitoring and sleep pattern detection, is now monitored by many entities through personal commodity devices like smartphones and wearable devices. Yet, value from this raw information is limited. Most existing apps and devices have limited sharing mechanisms, preventing individuals from independently exploring and making sense of their own data, and hindering the research community's ability to leverage these data. Furthermore, while some data streams (e.g., steps, sleep) have already been considered by proprietary devices and apps, there are many other data types left to explore.
The successful app will allow Columbia community members to sign up as users to a community-wide sharing environment, where their data will be available to Columbia researchers and potentially to other users, e.g., by social network proximity. Potential challenges a submission might focus on include, but are not limited to:
- motivating users to track their data
- exploring new types of data to track that pertain to health
- providing users with feedback on their data
- enabling sharing of data with other individuals and with the research community
- protecting privacy of data
Requirements and Evaluation Criteria
- Opt-in and transparent policy regarding providing access to one’s own data
- Mechanism for sharing data with Columbia health data science researchers
- Flexibility and extensibility regarding the types of data and collection devices
Rules
- The competition is open to all Columbia students, in teams of 1-4.
- Prizes (for full team): $2,000 for 1st place, $1,000 for 2nd place, and $500 for 3rd place
- While authors of submitted apps retain copyrights to the app, Columbia will be given a CC-BY 4.0 license
- Judges will be appointed by the Columbia University Data Science Institute Center for Health Analytics committee
- March 13, 2015: Team registration
- April 3, 2015: Progress report submission
- May 7, 2015: Final submission
- May 8, 2015: Demo and app winners announcement