Carnegie Mellon Qatar: Technology Integral to Maintain Health
DOHA, QATAR – Everybody – organizations, businesses, government agencies and individuals – uses information to make decisions. In anticipation of the State of Qatar’s National Sports Day celebrations, Carnegie Mellon is encouraging students to facilitate better health and wellbeing using the power of technology.
“The Information Systems program is not just about benefitting businesses. It is about practically changing people’s lives through technology,” said Daniel Phelps, assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.
Research suggests people sustain the motivation to lose weight if there is a regular communication with a nutritionist.
One way of achieving such communication without physically visiting a specialist is by utilizing the power of computers and information technology tools to generate, process and distribute information to achieve health and wellness objectives in an effective, efficient way directly using a mobile device.
And, you need information systems to achieve this.
Like many countries, Qatar is facing challenges when it comes to promoting healthy eating and active lifestyles. With fast food restaurants more common than parks and gyms, it is not surprising that the country is seeing a rise in the number of people who are overweight or obese.
Some 73 percent of Qatari men and 70 percent of Qatari woman are overweight, according to the World Health Organization’s 2012 statistics.
Qatar also has the sixth highest rate of obesity among boys in the Middle East and North Africa.
In a 2006 study of children between the ages of 12 and 17, almost 29 percent of boys and girls were overweight, with eight percent hitting the obesity mark.
The prevalence of diabetes in Qatar was estimated to be 20 percent in 2011, up from 16.7 percent in 2008 according to Abdullah al Hamaq, director of Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA)
As the State of Qatar prepares to celebrate National Sports Day, Carnegie Mellon is reaching out to high schools to inform them on how technology and information systems can improve not only business best practice, but health and livelihoods, as well.
In this year’s Ibtikar competition, teams of high school students had eight weeks to come up with an innovative mobile-based game that will support sustainable healthy lifestyle habits in Qatar.
The winning team from Doha College designed Qatar Lifestyle, a bilingual application for adults and children to encourage healthy eating and lifestyle choices.
They proposed a holistic approach to weight loss that is adapted to Qatar’s environment and culture, and created a game that can be monitored by health specialists.
Qatar Lifestyle’s goal is to allow players to virtually discover and learn how to maintain a healthy lifestyle (characters learn about healthy food options and ways to exercise).
It uses the features of smart phones to mix real physical exercise with virtual play and allows for communication amongst players, simulating life in a real city.
Last weekend’s outreach program is just one facet of the Information Systems program’s health-related initiatives and research.
At the undergraduate level, information systems students have been using a grant from the Qatar National Research Fund through their Undergraduate Research Experience Program to enhance young Qatari health behavior using mobile applications.
The application deadline for students interested in applying to Carnegie Mellon’s Information Systems program is March 1.