When we were offered the chance to disrupt and change the way medical data collection takes place in patient care, we jumped right in!The goal was to take the existing mobile application Beiwe (pronounced bee-we) and create more effective ways to gather critical data to better define why people act the way they do. The name Beiwe appropriately is a transliteration of a Nordic goddess of sunlight and mental health.When Onnela connected with Rocket Farm Studios to build the iOS app features there were many design factors to consider.The app was designed to collect both passive (sensor-based) and active data (surveys) to best monitor cognitive and physical functioning.There was a lot to consider!Due to the sensitive patient data, security was of the utmost importance. Rocket Farm had to think about privacy from the very start.  So we scrambled potential identifiers and all data is encrypted at all times.They also needed to be able to collect the most useful and critical information with ease.What’s the user’s cognitive functioning?Social functioning?Has he or she left the home?How long did that take?How long did they stay there?Can the person respond to text messages?All of this data was then utilized to help define mobility metrics and screen activities which ultimately quantified a person’s sleep patterns. To achieve reproducibility, it is key to focus on both data collection and data analysis.Beiwe is currently being used in numerous studies including various Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. Investigators worldwide have two different ways of using Beiwe in their studies.

Quick Key started with a conversation between entrepreneur Isaac van Wesep and his friend, teacher Walter Duncan. Duncan has long been a believer in testing students’ knowledge with very regular – even daily – quizzes. The grading process, however, was becoming arduous. Wouldn’t it be great, Duncan said, if he didn’t have to hand-grade these quizzes or use pricey scanning machines? If there were a way for his phone to quickly scan and grade answer sheets?The more they talked, the more they liked the idea. The tool they imagined would be affordable to all teachers, allowing regular testing to be integrated into lower-income and affluent schools alike. If used widely enough, they reasoned, it could be used to help bridge the educational divide between rich and poor.“A lot of education technology is wonderful and useful and available only to the 1 percent of students and teachers who happen to work and learn in well-funded schools,” van Wessep said.So the pair decided to turn their vision into reality.To bring their concept to life they turned to Rocket Farm Studios. They chose Rocket Farm for the company’s quick and thorough RFP response, impressive and prompt creative portfolio, and responsive discovery process, van Wesep said.They brought their idea, but,van Wesep admits, they didn’t have many specifications to offer developers. So Rocket Farm’s team stepped in, helping van Wesep and Duncan translate their concept into technical requirements and a simple, intuitive user experience.After the details were in place, there were two major obstacles for developers to overcome.First, they had to figure out how to make a smartphone camera function as an optical scanner. Taking a picture of a completed bubble sheet was easy, but lighting conditions, shadows, and the position of the phone all complicate the process of analyzing the photo, explained developer Seth Lipkin.

Someecards.com is a free online e-cards service created by Brook Lundy and Duncan Mitchell. The content of Someecards consists of parodies of the sentiments found in the traditional Hallmark greeting card, sometimes features content that could be considered offensive if taken seriously.