PARENTS, teachers and coaches are taking part in a new project to monitor the activity of young people.
Education technology and coaching company Healthy Kidz has announced a 12-month collaboration with the Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC) at Ulster University.
It will further develop a cloud-based management and reporting service to allow people to monitor engagement and activity of children using the Healthy Kidz app.
Healthy Kidz began in 2017 providing a physical education programme in Northern Ireland primary schools that sought to get every child active, fit and healthy.
From the outset, the programme has been evidence-based and outcome focussed and over the last two years the firm has collected substantial volumes of routine data on children's physical activity, health and wellbeing status.
By the end of 2019, Healthy Kidz had enrolled and was tracking activity and performance of more than 12,000 children (aged 8-11) via its mobile application.
Healthy Kidz technical manager Chris Cousens said CHIC was an ideal long-term partner.
"This exciting collaboration will support the further development of ed-tech solutions to promote and increase physical activity for our pupils," he said.
"We will now be able to analyse our data and create bespoke and personalised interventions to keep children motivated and stimulated in this critically important aspect of their development."
CHIC director David Branagh said the project would support Healthy Kidz in developing their application to promote physical activity and general wellbeing in children.
"The project aims to develop a platform that utilises data analytic approaches to determine personalised interventions to promote children's physical activity using data collected from wearable devices," he said.
