Open Design Challenge launches to develop fitness app for US Airforce

AF CyberWorx is launching its first-ever open design challenge. The online competition is designed to allow people to join from across the nation, bringing together a greater mix of participants from industry, government, and academia. Participants are asked to design and develop a fitness application that could provide health monitoring, personalized fitness coaching, and medical alerts to help improve the overall health and readiness of airmen.

The foundations for the challenge were laid in April 2017 when AF CyberWorx hosted a design sprint that asked the question, “How can the Air Force leverage the Internet of Things and IT commercial technology to make Air Force bases better places to work?”

Through a series of three human-centered design sprints, participants narrowed the focus to incorporating smart technology into airmen’s fitness training. Adopting a mobile fitness application will not only promote year-round fitness but will also enable a more seamless transition between routine physical training and warfighter performance. Having access to health monitoring and fitness coaching will allow airmen around the globe to improve their health and increase readiness.

When the submissions window opens on August 1, anyone can submit a design idea. On August 30, only the top eight ideas will be selected to advance to prototyping. During the second phase, participants will be paired with airmen to gain valuable user feedback. AF CyberWorx commitment to connecting developers with users ensures that participants receive feedback to help develop a solution that best solves the challenges airmen are facing.

In September, the top four solutions will be selected and given the chance to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. Submissions, Q&A’s and pitches will be completed virtually.

During the final pitches, judges will evaluate solutions and select a winner based on potential impact to the Air Force and airmen, technical maturation and feasibility, usability of data, and overall presentation. Judges will be looking for solutions that both meet specified needs and can be implemented on a large scale. Presenters also must consider this question: will airmen want to adopt this solution?

In conjunction with the open design challenge, the Center for Technology, Research, and Commercialization (C-TRAC) is offering a monetary participation incentive for each team of the eight selected for the second phase. The winning team will receive $20,000 from C-TRAC.