The Race Begins
The idea came from Ephesoft’s Global Vice President of Marketing Andrea Walter’s son at the beginning of January 2021. He was excited about an app called Sweatcoin that tracks every step you take with your mobile phone and gives you one “Sweatcoin” for every 1,000 steps. Your steps accumulate Sweatcoins – a digital currency – and users can choose to donate the money to various causes or charities. According to one article, one Sweatcoin is the equivalent of $0.05, but users can’t sell them for cash. Sweatcoin says the value is derived from their partnerships with brands “that want to connect with health conscious audiences, insurers wishing to encourage healthier lifestyle choices and governments looking to reduce healthcare costs.”
In the midst of the pandemic and lockdown from California to Germany, the marketing team decided that since we were all walking so much for exercise from home (and it could be done with social distancing), this would be motivating and feel good to donate to people in need around the world. At the time, there were 4 team members who participated and all of us connected via the app so we could see and compare our daily steps. The steps began to add up.
Results
Finally, we felt we had enough coins to make a difference in March. We selected “Accessible Education for Refugee Children” for our first donation of 600 Sweatcoins, which is the equivalent to 600,000 steps. At the end of April, we had accumulated 463,000 steps, of which we donated 463 Sweatcoins to “Cleaning Services for Cancer Patients.” Summer was a busy walking month and in July, we donated 784,000 steps or 784 Sweatcoins to “Care for Children with Brain Tumours.” Most recently, in response to the current earthquake that hit Haiti, we donated 430,000 steps or 430 Sweatcoins to help Haitian children.
After taking a step back to look at our progress, we were amazed: the team walked 2,277,000 steps! Using a steps-to-miles calculator, the team walked approximately 1,156 miles in total, which is about 144 miles per month. And, the best part is that we had an opportunity to make an impact in others’ lives. Stay tuned for more updates as the team keeps trekking!
A Small World: Helping Our Mutual Customer, NHS
Another cool aspect about Sweatcoin and Ephesoft is that we have a common healthcare organization, NHS (National Health Service) in the UK, that we are both working towards helping in different ways through technology. Sweatcoin is piloting a new type of behavior change program to help NHS patients with Type 2 diabetes using their platform. Unrelated to the Sweatcoin project, both Leeds Teaching Hospitals (NHS) and Liverpool University Hospitals (NHS) have implemented Ephesoft’s intelligent document processing solution at their locations to improve patient care. At Leeds, the hospital uses Ephesoft to create an efficient, digital platform with an e-referral system so patients can get care faster through automation. At the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Hospital NHS Trust (RLBUHT), the hospital wanted to digitally transform their document processes to create paper-free health records to save costs, improve efficiency and gain more quality time with patients.
“It’s such a good feeling to know that different companies with different services can affect change for the greater good through technology,” said Andrea Walter, VP of Marketing at Ephesoft. “We’re glad to be a part of the solution and I’m proud of our team for taking part and living a healthy lifestyle while giving back. ”
Who wants to join us?
