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People: People Profiles
Sam Young, inventor, Act Alarm Clock
“I wanted to show people how they could not only reduce pollution, but also improve their own quality of life through active travelling”
How did you come up with the idea of the Act Alarm Clock?
I studied sustainable product design at university, and the final year brief was to design a product for societal change. I decided to focus on air pollution and physical inactivity – both recurring themes in the media – and specifically on designing a product to reduce personal CO2 emissions through active commuter travel.
I’m a keen cyclist myself and I appreciate the benefits of active travel:
I enjoy it, it wakes me up in the morning, I feel energised when I get to work, it improves my sleep pattern, it helps me to keep fit, I save money and overall I feel it improves my quality of life. I wanted to design something that made it easier for a wider audience to undertake active travel, and in doing this lower their personal CO2 emissions and improve their levels of physical activity.
What’s the concept?
Act Alarm Clock is based around one word: routine. The clock varies the time your alarm goes off according to the local weather and travel reports, waking you at an appropriate time to incorporate low carbon active travel if the conditions are correct. It also records weekly travel behaviour and uses this data to stimulate further change in the user.
How does it work?
During the initial set-up of the Act Alarm Clock, the user is asked a series of questions. The device will then gauge an understanding of the user, their travel times and routine depending on their chosen travel modes. It currently covers cycling, walking, running, train and bus, as well as inactive modes of transport such as car and motorbike for when active travel isn’t appropriate.
The user is asked for their work location(s) and home address, allowing the alarm to work out potential traffic issues and distance to travel, as well as gender, age, height and weight, so the device can calculate calorie count based on the travel modes chosen. The user’s car type and engine size will also be required, allowing the alarm to work out financial savings. These questions will only be asked once, during the initial set-up of the device, but can be changed if required.
The user is also asked a series of questions to establish in what conditions they would be willing to travel actively; these can be reset at any point.
Questions include: would you active travel if there was 40 per cent chance of light rain in the afternoon, or if it’s sunny but below 3 degrees centigrade?
When the alarm goes off, a brief display is projected onto the ceiling, allowing the user to assess the potential travel mode and act accordingly. The snooze button triggers the next possible mode of transport.
When setting the alarm in the evening, the user is asked what type of day they will be having in terms of attire: the device can factor out over- strenuous forms of exercise if you’re travelling in a suit, for instance. The user also has to input when they need to arrive at work, allowing for the alarm to wake them with enough time depending on the travel mode.
How does it incentivise people to do what it says?
The alarm records weekly travel behaviour and displays the benefits of active travel, including exercise time, calorie count and financial savings.
Through research, I’ve discovered people tend to turn a blind eye to pollution, so I wanted to show them how they could not only reduce pollution but also improve their own quality of life through active travelling.
What are your plans for the product?
Act Alarm Clock is currently at concept level, and I’m now aiming to develop a fully working prototype to put through testing in conjunction with Loughborough University, focusing on how effective the concept is in driving behaviour change.
The next step will be to look for funding and start retailing the device to the mass market, with an RRP of £80–100. I also hope to link the clock
to a smartphone and a calendar, to give future advice on travel modes depending on the user’s movements, and would like to add a feature where the user can specify how many calories they want to burn or what financial saving they wish to make, for example.
Helen Nuki, founder, StepJockey
“We’re able to give people the positive side of the calorie equation”
Signs explaining how many calories are burned by taking the stairs instead of the lift will be added to public staircases as part of a government-backed scheme to improve the fitness of UK workers.
The scheme was developed by a Department of Health-funded web start-up called StepJockey. Trials at three large office buildings, including the BBC in Manchester, found that signs advertising how many calories you could burn by taking the stairs increased the number of people using them by up to 29 per cent.
“The aim of StepJockey is very simple: mark the built environment for calorie burn in the same way we mark foods for calorie consumption,” says Helen Nuki, founder of StepJockey. “We’re starting with stairs because stair climbing is classed as a vigorous physical activity and burns more calories than jogging.”
The idea for StepJockey was born when Nuki showed her eight-year-old daughter a packet of biscuits with the calorie and fat content listed, and her daughter asked why labels only ever showed bad things.
“In that moment, the idea to label the world for calorie burn was born,” Nuki says. “In doing this, we’re able to give the positive side of the calorie equation.”
The service uses an app and website. Users will be able to scan ‘smart signs’ on the allocated stairways and track the calories they burn over time.
The scheme is based on nudge theory – the idea that positive reinforcement can change behaviour. “Because we can’t process all the information needed to make every single decision throughout the day, we rely on automatic behaviour to get us through. This behaviour is governed by many factors such as habit, ease, salience and what we see other people doing,” says Nuki.
“We knew that if we wanted to change behaviour, we needed something that would be easy for people to do, would have salience (the posters interrupt habits at the point of behaviour), would be for everyone and would give an incentive for people to change.”
Details: www.stepjockey.com
Tim Jahnigen and Lisa Tarver, co-founders of One World Futbol
“Sport is one of the most effective and practical ways of planting the seeds of peace”
It wasn’t until the age of 40 that Tim Jahnigen had a pivotal, life- changing ‘aha!’ moment. “I was watching a news story about the plight of children in Darfur,” he says. “These acutely traumatised innocents were playing football with a ball of trash.
“I suddenly sat bolt upright with the complete and unwavering understanding of the fact that these children deserved better than that. I not only wanted to make a ball that would enable them to play, but had a vision for a new type of ball that would play like a soccer ball, but would never go flat.”
Up until his revelation, Jahnigen had been involved in a number of different sectors and business ventures – including a career as a concert producer in the music industry. “I spent many years scrubbing, digging, washing, cooking and hammering – fulfilling other people’s dreams and wishes,” he says, adding that it was his connections in the music world that ultimately made the indestructible ball a reality.
Jahnigen had got to know the singer Sting personally after being a part of the production family for the artist’s bi-annual Rainforest Fund Concert. Soon after coming up with the indestructible ball idea, Jahnigen – alongside wife and business partner Lisa Tarver – mentioned his vision to Sting over breakfast.
“He was telling us how he had just financed the construction of a football pitch in Gaza,” Jahnigen says. “I shared my idea for an indestructible soccer ball with him and he immediately offered to cover the R&D costs, provided I pursued the idea right there and then.”
Sting’s involvement carries on in the ball’s name. “When the time came to decide what this new ball should be called, Sting simply said: ‘One World’, after his hit of the same name,” says Jahnigen. Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, continue to advocate and support the project.
Jahnigen’s wife Tarver says the venture is a mission-driven company focused on the transformative power of play. “We sell the One World Futbol through a ‘buy one, give one’ model,” she says. “For every ball purchased, we give a second one to an organisation using play and sport to teach health awareness, conflict resolution, gender equality and life skills.”
