The Big Data Visualization Hackathon: ‘Making the healthy choice in any environment’ took place October 12 – 13 at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven where 10 teams of hackers with various backgrounds created solutions in the area of health care.
I participated with Eugene Tjoa. We created a mobile app that acts as a personal compass guiding you to the areas most beneficial for you.
After filling in your health profile you can choose an activity. By combining different datasets the application overlays the vicinity with a grid that indicates better, neutral or worse areas. By clicking on one of the tiles you get more information about the advice. For example if you are suffering from asthma areas with high pollution will be red, clicking on the tile will tell you more about the air quality.
If this area is not good for you but a little bit further on it is better this will be indicated by a green circle just outside the map. The position of the circle indicates the direction you should be heading:
Despite all the talk on open data it was hard to find suitable datasets, especially ones with a finer grain. It was a very docile experience for us. We learned a lot about making apps with Flex. Philips provided a nice atmosphere, good food and inspiration. All in all a very good experience.