How often do we hear that children, because of technology, have become lazier, even more overweight, less social and less independent?
It just so happens that the very use of technology can come to the rescue of families to help youngsters to move more, along with their peers, allowing them to recover autonomy and independence, to learn to move in their city, but also guaranteeing a certain degree of serenity to parents.
Child Explorer is the project of a service, for children aged 5 to 11, that wants to help them gain greater autonomy when moving in the city, encouraging them also to a healthy lifestyle and “smarter” behaviors.
Designed by Enbelive society, Child Explorer consists of an app, a webplatform, a smartwatch and a pervasive game, the combination of which makes it possible to help families (and especially children) in the daily organization, solving the accompaniment and the resumption of children from school and in their travels. Through the smartwatch parents can geo-locate the child at any time and access to the electronic register of the school; the child is reassured by the fact of being able to call mum and dad at any time. In addition, the pervasive game encourages the child in good practice: physical exercise, proper lifestyle in terms of environmental sustainability, energy saving, healthy eating, which allow him/her to gain points in the game.
Child Explorer also contains a system that links the children attending the same school, similar to the so-called Pedibus that takes place in many urban centers: through the app, in fact, small groups of children, who may live in the same area, are organized and can get to school on foot under the supervision of an adult (usually a parent). Any child will be able to send a text message to parents once arrived at school: the smartphone can store up to 5 reference numbers, and the message can be voice or text, in whatsapp style. The smartphone is also equipped with an SOS button and the GPS, so the parent can always know where the child is following the movements through the app.
The type of service of Child Explorer, based on IoT technologies, is also appreciated by insurance companies because it is easily converted into an innovative insurance product, or represent the evolution of the existing ones.
In fact, it has already attracted the attention of a company: ranked first in the contest IoT and Big Data Cardif Open-F@b held last December.
Here a quick presentation of the project.
