West Virginia University Business Incubator tenant Videntity won $10,000 in the West Wireless Health Institute’s developer challenge Oct. 7.
Alan Viars created Videntity as a managed identity service that provides a platform for identity verification, transaction authorization, identity federation, and auditing. He won the Health 2.0 Conference contest in San Francisco for leveraging wireless technology and social networks to engage people in managing their own health.
“I wanted to design a platform that would allow users to customize, personalize and easily manage their personal health data in a fun, interactive way,” Viars, a West Virginia University graduate, explained.
Viars was contacted via phone of his award, and was flew to San Francisco to present his solution. He used a Wii Balance Board to connect to the Internet and a Facebook application.
“I envisioned a solution where consumers have the choice of how they want to engage, whether it is through a medical device, a mobile phone, or a social network. Being able to manage weight, activity level, and blood pressure from anywhere, and then share that data across social platforms, motivates people to modify their behavior through networks that they are already using.”
The contest called for developers to create a low-cost, secure mechanism for incorporating real-time health data derived from wireless sensors into an established social network interface.
Viars’ winning submission integrates consumer devices and open source platforms to enable people to share real-time health data securely over their social networks as they work towards achieving health and fitness goals.
Videntity’s solution uses a simple, open language to standardize health information from multiple sources and a development approach that makes it easy for other innovators to build their own applications on top of the system.
“Videntity’s winning submission demonstrates the potential of low cost innovations to empower and engage people in managing their health, enabling them to leverage their social connections for motivation and support,” said Don Casey, WWHI’s CEO. “Such innovations are vital for driving a new paradigm within health care, and ultimately, lowering costs. The Institute is thrilled to make this award to such a creative team.”
Viars plans to use the money to further fund future software development.
WWHI, a medical research organization whose mission is to lower health care costs by accelerating the availability of wireless health solutions, issued its “Accelerating Wireless Health Adoption through a Standardized Social Network Platform” in August as part of the 2010 Health 2.0 Developer Challenge.
Viars has years of experience in biometrics research and development, and mobile and web health applications. He specializes in identity verification, transaction management, medical devices and medical informatics. He is a graduate of West Virginia University and holds a Masters of Computer Science and a Masters of Business Administration.
Posted by Candace Nelson on October 21, 2010 at 3:09 pm in the following categories: Featured News
