In the last five to ten years, developments in ICT and sensor technology have resulted in a wide range of application fields such as health related smartphone applications, activity trackers and sports watches. These innovations in smart wearable body sensors have created possibilities for people to become ‘experts’ in self-monitoring of health parameters and physical activity.
One of the game changers in these recent advances in technology is their ability to track behaviors in daily life situations over time, and across a large number of users. The capturing of temporally, behaviorally and ecologically contextualized data from their users generates large datasets. Through data analytics and data visualization (i) interesting patterns can be discovered, (ii) predictions can be made, and (iii) fundamental understanding is raised about behavioral patterns and the influence of individual, social and environmental factors, and systems and services designed to empower people to have an active lifestyle.
In this presentation, these developments will be discussed, and concrete examples of data analytics and visualizations and designed systems and products will be shown to highlight the opportunities that sensor- technology and data offer.
Steven Vos is both full professor at the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and head of ‘Lectoraat Move to Be’ at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, School of Sport Studies. He is also part of the Policy in Sports and Physical Activity Research Group at KU Leuven, Belgium. His main area of work is in (i) profiling people (during physical activity and/or sports participation) in different settings, such as children in schools during PE-lessons or at play grounds, participants in running events and/or while running in daily urban areas, people at work, elderly, etc.), (ii) designing tailored services and products to improve physical activity, pleasure and vitality, and (iii) evaluating the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of these social and/or technical innovations. With his multidisciplinary research he wants to contribute to the design of smart solutions for vital and (sports) active people, taking into account individual, social and environmental factors.
Steven Vos is a bridge builder across disciplines, sectors, policy domains and scientific paradigms. He aims to inspire people to complement each other's expertise.