About our project
This project is a finalist in the American Heart Association Challenge. To see the rest of the finalists, please visit MedStartr.com/Heart
Sitting Disease Affects 80% of America’s Workforce
Sitting inactively is more harmful for us than we think!
There are almost 85 million jobs in the US alone that primarily involve sitting. Prolonged hours of inactivity in the workplace are known to result in numerous health problems such as obesity, diabetes and other cardiovascular issues. The epidemic of the ‘sitting disease’ is spreading rapidly as advances in technology promote inactivity.
This is a personal issue for our team. When we graduated from college and began working in Corporate America, we sat sedentary for at least 6 to 8 hours per day – almost half the time we were awake. We started feeling lethargic, and getting head and backaches. That’s when we felt we had to do something to address this problem not just for ourselves but for others too.
How FitnessCubed Fights the Sitting Disease
Cubii is the world’s first under-desk elliptical trainer designed specifically for your workspace. This allows you to get your heart rate up and blood circulation going while working without any distraction. Bluetooth integration allows you to keep track of your activity via a mobile app. If you’re already using a fitness tracker, it syncs with that too. Don’t have space or can’t afford a standing or treadmill desk? Try Cubii. Now you don’t have an excuse for being physically inactive at work.
How Cubii Works
Cubii facilitates simple, unconscious leg motions preventing any distraction from regular work. The elliptical motion along with appropriate foot angles ensures a smooth and comfortable motion. It is quiet, so you won’t distract others around you! And the exercise is not tedious, so you won’t sweat. It is just enough to keep you active! On average, exercise with Cubii burns approximately 110 kcal per hour.
Features
Adjustable resistance allows you to select the exercise intensity of your choice
A conveniently located handle makes it easy to move around if need be
Bluetooth integration lets you keep track of your activity via our mobile app
Your knees won’t hit your desk when you use Cubii, preventing any distraction from work
Conventional pedal exercise machines have not been designed for under-desk use, resulting in numerous distractions
Specifications: 24 inches (length), 15 inches (width), 10 inches (height)
Progress to Date
After one year of business development and market research, we are ready for our first manufacturing round. In August, we completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to which supporters pledged over $290,000 and pre-ordered 1100 units of Cubii.
Our story was featured in NPR, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Venturebeat, Fox News, ABC News, CNET, Chicago Tribune, and more. Recently, we had the honor of showcasing Cubii to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at ThinkChicago Ideas Week in August 2014, and to CSR leaders across the world at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in September 2014.
Our next step is where you come in. We‘re planning to partner with university researchers to conduct a scientific study that will measure the effect of exercise intervention with Cubii on insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular health. By establishing a stronger case for Cubii as a potential solution to mitigate the risks of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, we would have a higher chance of working with wellness providers and insurance companies to help more people across Corporate America get access to Cubii.
How We Further the American Heart Association’s 2020 Mission
We believe that the solution to actualizing the American Heart Association’s 2020 mission lies in making physical activity fit seamlessly into our daily lives. FitnessCubed addresses a source of cardiovascular diseases right in the workplace where 85 million Americans sit for over half of their hours awake. Cubii is the first of many products in our pipeline that seeks to engage people in low-intensity exercise while empowering them with data collected through our mobile app. With Cubii, we intend to make low-intensity leg motion a form of physical activity that can be “prescribed” to anyone in order to prevent cardiovascular diseases.
How We Help Companies:
FitnessCubed builds healthier workplaces. We provide a simple yet effective way for employees to exercise while they work. Cubii is compact, and slips right under the desk, therefore requiring no major change in office layout. Moreover, it is engineered to reduce noise, thereby causing no distraction in an office with over a hundred employees. Our mobile app has a social feature, which allows co-workers to compete with one another to foster an active environment.
How We Help Wellness Providers and Insurance Companies:
According to Blue Cross Blue Shield, companies are spending $1429 additionally on medical spending on an obese person as compared to a person of normal weight. Cubii can significantly help in reducing this, as well as other costs arising from sedentary behavior for millions of American workers.
FitnessCubed is also developing a cloud-based analytics platform that collects and stores anonymized fitness data across multiple companies, helping wellness providers and insurance companies measure the effectiveness of health and fitness programs.
We would love to work with disease management and insurance companies or ACOs to design and implement a sedentary exercise program, which includes multiple units of Cubii along with our cloud-based analytics system currently under development.
Your Contribution Funds Scientific Study With Cubii
Your contributions will partially fund a scientific study that will help Cubii gain support from the medical community. We see this as an essential next step to gaining trust of wellness providers and insurance companies who could help us reach out to a much larger audience affected by the sitting disease. We are currently talking to several notable university research institutions that have reached out to us with proposals for joint studies. A 6-month study of least 25 participants from 1 institution will cost approximately $100,000 (subject to change).
Our Team
Arnav Dalmia, Co-Founder, CEO | Arnav is a health freak. The inspiration for Cubii came from working as an employee at a large corporation where he sat for at least 8 hours in front of a computer. His expertise includes manufacturing & logistics, building relationships and sales. Arnav’s Linkedin profile":https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arnav-dalmia/20/904/744.
Shivani Jain, Co-Founder, CMO | Shivani is the brand manager for FitnessCubed. She talks to customers constantly to understand how different audiences could benefit from using Cubii. Her expertise includes customer research, marketing and brand strategy. Shivani’s Linkedin profile
Ryota Sekine, Co-Founder, COO | Ryota wants to build healthier cities. He works with designers, engineers and data scientists to create an enterprise health analytics platform for connected office fitness machines such as Cubii. His expertise includes people management, product design and experimental design. Ryota’s Linkedin profile and Twitter: @ryota_sekine.
Here we are showing off Cubii when it was just a prototype (see the wood!)
FitnessCubed is part of Healthbox, a global accelerator focused on health care startups. With operations in Boston, Chicago, Florida, Nashville, Salt Lake City and London, the program offers health care entrepreneurs access to mentorship from physicians, hospitals, insurance providers and medical device companies. More about Healthbox, https://www.healthbox.com.
About our Company
Company Name: FitnessCubed, LLC
Company Site: www.fitnesscubed.com
Find us on facebook
Tweet with us on Twitter @FitnessCubed
Blog: http://fitness3ed.tumblr.com/
Physical Address:
213 N RACINE AVENUE
CHICAGO, Illinois 60607
Thank You
Thank you so much for supporting us in our mission to build healthier workplaces. We are excited about bringing the Cubii to your office as well as working with academic researchers to study the efficacy of Cubii. With your contribution, we can win the support of the medical community, and make it easier for wellness providers and insurance companies to adopt our solution so that we can help more people stay fit while they sit.
- Arnav, Ryota, Shivani
P.S. Please email us with any questions or suggestions!
P.P.S. Lots more great images and fun stuff on our photo gallery
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Have a question?
If the info above does not help, you can ask the project creator directly.
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