Innovator in the Spotlight

Towards a more inclusive society to raise awareness of basic skills gaps

In the Netherlands, 2.5 million people struggle daily with reading, writing, math, and digital skills, also called basic skills. These deficiencies make it difficult for them to fully participate in society, such as reading and understanding a letter or buying a train ticket, leading to various personal and societal problems.

POWEr FITTing – Office Vitality in a Box

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Designing healthier ways of working!

We all recognize the employees that sit more than 7 hours in the office behind a computer, stressed out to meet the company targets and deadlines, keeping different balls in the air. To continue to perform in an increasingly competitive global economy, we all need to work longer, smarter and more. Yet, physical inactivity rates are growing and the number of people with burnout is increasing. Investing in the sustainable employability of employees, based on good physical and mental health, is crucial in this respect, not least to prevent absenteeism for personal and economic reasons, and to reduce health care costs.

General project problem description

POWEr FITTing wants to optimize the fit between a person’s vitality and his office environment considering individual, social and contextual factors. We will use data-enabled approaches to support office workers to optimize the balance between well-being, health, and productivity. Based on challenging data acquisition, integration and application of meaningful data we will validate new user-centric office solutions. This provides health related benefits for office workers as well as an environment that makes sure they enjoy making the most of their day in the office.

Description of assignment: Office Vitality in a Box (or outside the box!)

In recent years, the use of sensors in office buildings has increased, often with the aim of optimising the building performance. Yet it is unclear how these sensors benefit the workers themselves in a meaningful way, for instance by supporting them in adopting healthier working routines. Sensors in office environments allow to measure contextual factors (e.g., temperature, humidity, light) but could also be used to better understand working routines at the social and individual levels. Communicating this data to the workers themselves might also empower them and support behaviour change.

Sensing the work environment, along with people’s actions and affective states is essential to design personalized behavior change interventions. What can you equip with sensors to better understand the context of office work? How will you involve people in a continuous and qualitative way to gain a nuanced grasp of their (un)healthy behaviors?

Example of Sensorbox projects bij Sjoerd Stamhuis (Left) and Roos Hanckmann, Rory Aartsen, Linda Schellenberg and Jafar Fernald (right)

Your mission is to design a vitality sensor box (or ecosystem of) to deliver meaningful information to office workers about their working environment, their own routines and perhaps even the ones of their team members. Relevant questions which can be addressed:

Depending on your study background, this mission can either involve:


Types of student project possible

Fontys: Internship, Graduation projects
TU/e: Bachelor project, Master internship, Master thesis

Types of study

  • Industrial Design
  • Computer Science
  • Data Science
  • Elektrical Engineering
  • Psychology and Technology
  • Built Environment

Starting date/duration of student projects

Flexible depending on the requirements of students’ institutions.

Contact

Marieke van Beurden, m.v.beurden@tue.nl