The ResearchKit Mood Challenge will look at better understanding moods
- apr
- 06
There's a new challenge for Apple's ResearchKit to better understand moods and how they affect daily life. The venture fund program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and will award $500,000 to finalists, as well as expert mentorship and piloting opportunities. The challenge is to have researchers and technologists to submit proposals for studies using ResearchKit.
Entrants are encouraged to dig deep when it comes to emotions and how the surroundings can affect the mood of an individual. Factors like weather, pollution, access to food and more. Proposals of ResearchKits studies will be accepted through May 22. $20,000 will be awarded to five semi-finalists while two finalists will receive $100,000 each. They will then move into testing phases where designs will be developed into prototypes.
One winner will then receive $200,000 with their app submitted to the App Store.
Press Release
The Mood Challenge for ResearchKit calls upon researchers and technologists to submit proposals for ResearchKit studies that will further our understanding of mood and how it relates to daily life. The Challenge, a New Venture Fund program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and powered by Luminary Labs, will award $500,000 and provide finalists with expert mentorship and piloting opportunities. ResearchKit, an open source software framework designed by Apple, turns iPhone into a powerful tool for medical research by helping doctors, scientists, and other researchers gather data more frequently and more accurately from participants anywhere in the world.
iPhone, through the use of ResearchKit, provides an unprecedented opportunity to investigate mood through the collection of active and passive data. Semi-finalists and finalists will contribute developments back to the open source community, making their submissions available for use in future ResearchKit studies. Entrants are encouraged to go beyond measuring the surface level of what we call emotion and mood to explore contextual factors and social determinants - such as weather, pollution, access to food, sleep, and social connectedness - that relate to mood.
"We think platforms like ResearchKit have the potential to revolutionize how research is conducted, and we're launching this competition to help explore that," said RWJF President and CEO Risa-Lavizzo-Mourey. "We know that mood is one of the keys to health, but much more can be learned about the relationship between mood and the many social and economic factors that affect it, and our health. We're thrilled to help advance research in this field that will help build a Culture of Health in America."
Proposals for ResearchKit studies will be accepted through May 22, 2016. Five semi-finalists will receive $20,000 each and have the opportunity to develop their proposals into app designs during the Virtual Accelerator, which includes an in-person boot camp to help with the development of their designs. Following the Virtual Accelerator, two finalists will receive $100,000 and move ahead to the Finalist Incubation and Testing phase, during which teams will fully develop their designs into prototypes. Following testing, one winner will be chosen to receive $200,000 to continue development and, finally, submit to the App Store.
