Fitnet receives Gigabit Community Fund grant to support University of Kansas Medical Center childhood obesity program
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (PRWEB) July 22, 2014 -- Fitnet, a top rated health & fitness app, which uses a biometric webcam to provide real-time feedback during video exercise, will provide technological and financial support at no cost to Healthy Hawks, a comprehensive health services program to help children adolescents and their families overcome issues related to weight. Based in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the program will utilize Fitnet’s mobile fitness app to provide a scalable and interactive workout that can easily be monitored and encouraged. Each Healthy Hawks family will receive an iPad and a data plan for use during their participation in the program. Mozilla is providing a $15,000 grant in support of the effort.
“Fitnet will be a great asset to Healthy Hawks by providing families with access to a comprehensive fitness system with the convenience of an on-demand digital service,” said Dr. Ann Davis, Healthy Hawks program director. “Our partnership will demonstrate how fitness technology can educate and empower the health community and aid the fight in childhood obesity.”
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 12.5 million children and adolescents aged two to 19 years are obese. Fitnet will use its advanced computer vision technology to connect families with health and nutritional information as well as real personal trainers for fun and convenient workouts complete with real-time individual feedback.
“Fitnet’s unique, live data aggregation capabilities provide Healthy Hawks a real-time measurement on its community impact,” said Fitnet founder and chief geek, Bob Summers. “In addition, our technology will give the Healthy Hawks team access to valuable insight into the program’s effectiveness for each client, and efficiently identify families or individuals that need extra attention.”
After its iPhone release late last month, Fitnet was immediately recognized by as the number one health and fitness app on iTunes. In addition, Fitnet’s iPad app has received recognition from TechCrunch, Mozilla, the National Science Federation, Microsoft and Google, and was featured as one of the top fitness apps in the iTunes App store among WebMD Fitness, Weight Watchers and Disney Fitness.
Fitnet is available now for all iPhone and iPad users at Apple’s iTunes App Store as a free download with over 180 workouts, with additional workouts added every week.
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About Fitnet
Launched in 2014, Fitnet delivers a personal fitness experience to mobile combining biometric sensors, fitness coaching and online workout buddies. Its unique technological approach converts a mobile webcam into a biometric sensor capable of scoring an individual while they work out with a human trainer. The Fitnet application is used in over 190 countries and its clients have collectively burned over 3 million calories since the launch on January 1, 2014. For more information, visit fit.net or follow @fitnethealth on Twitter.
About Healthy Hawks
Healthy Hawks was founded in 2004 at the University of Kansas Medical Center to provide a comprehensive treatment program to help children, adolescents and their families overcome issues related to weight. Since its creation, the program has become a model for delivering cost-effective treatment in a diverse community. For more information on Healthy Hawks, visit KUMC.edu or follow Healthy Hawks on Facebook.
About Gigabit Community Fund
Mozilla’s Gigabit Community Fund provides grants and resources for innovators exploring the use of next-generation gigabit technologies in Kansas City and Chattanooga, and through a partnership with NSF and US Ignite, seeks to advance the development, experimentation and implementation of learning and workforce opportunities enhanced by new, super powerful Internet technologies like Google Fiber and EPB. The $300,000 fund supports projects in Kansas City and Chattanooga - the leading gigabit economies in the US - creating ‘living labs’ for experimentation and development of public benefit uses for these technologies. Mozilla has been a pioneer and advocate for the Web for more than a decade. We create and promote open standards that enable innovation and advance the Web as a platform for all. Today, hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Mozilla Firefox to discover, experience and connect to the Web on computers, tablets and mobile phones. For more information please visit mozilla.org/gigabit.
Blair Broussard, AR|PR, http://www.arpr.co, +1 (504) 208-2655, [email protected]
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