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Claim Your Value - Discover your "MeDP" versus the GDP

The H(app)athon Project Launches their Personal Happiness Indicator Survey

Claim Your Value - Discover your "MeDP" versus the GDP

The H(app)athon Project Launches their Personal Happiness Indicator Survey

Published 03-20-13

Submitted by Happathon

Joining organizations around the world taking action on the first ever United Nations International Day of Happiness, the H(app)athon Project (www.happathon.com), will be launching their Personal Happiness Indicator Survey in nine locations around the world to signal the beginning of their twelve-month Initiative. The Survey can be taken directly at the Project’s site at www.happathon.com.

The H(app)athon Project Video Introduction from The H(app)athon Project on Vimeo.

“Companies spend billions of dollars utilizing cutting-edge technology to increase a consumer’s brand awareness of a product and lead them on a ‘path to purchase,’” says John C. Havens, Founder of the H(app)athon Project. “Our goal is to leverage similar methodologies but help people identify their ‘path to purpose’ by optimizing their well-being and happiness versus focusing on consuming or wealth.”

The Personal Happiness Indicator Survey is a mobile phone and web-based App that allows survey participants to answer questions over the course of two weeks or longer to examine how various metrics relating to happiness and well-being affect their lives. A second iteration of the Survey released in the summer of 2013 will incorporate emerging media sensors and technology to help greater reveal participants’ well-being and happiness.

By tracking things like biometric, GPS, social media and voice analysis data, the H(app)athon Project will be able to generate a machine learning algorithm that produces an individual’s customized Personal Happiness (Well-Being) Indicator, or their “MeDP” score.

“As the personal data economy evolves, a rich set of indicators will be essential to ensure it reflects the needs and aspirations of engaged individuals,” said William Hoffman, Head, Global ICT Agenda at the World Economic Forum. “We need the means to richly measure what people treasure, what inspires them and what makes them feel fulfilled. The H(app)athon Project is a big step forward in meeting this need.”

By creating software that will learn what is meaningful for survey participants, the Personal Happiness Indicator App the Project is building (to be released on March 20, 2014) is unique. This person-centric methodology wasn’t logistically feasible before the articulated sensors available in modern smartphones, and are perfect to help customize people’s ‘path to purpose’ and identify the actions and relationships that bring them greater well-being and happiness.

“This is a primary aspect of what makes our work unique,” says Kat Houghton, Co-founder and Research Director at ilumivu, and Tech/Survey lead for the H(app)athon Project, referring to the person-centric aspect of the App. “We’re not generating questions to be measured on a population level from which we will infer an individual’s level of personal well-being. We are starting with the individual and creating software that will learn what is meaningful for that person.”

Another defining quality of the Project is their focus on building trust with participants in regards to the data shared in surveys. H(app)athon is working with John Clippinger and ID3/MIT to help pilot their Open Mustard Seed (OMS) framework, an open data platform that allows people to have their own personal data service that can securely and privately store dynamic data about themselves. The platform will work in conjunction with ilumivu, the technological framework on which the H(app)athon Project’s surveys and community will be built.

A final goal for the H(app)athon Project and their Personal Happiness Indicator Surveys is to encourage people to not only learn what brings them well-being and happiness but share their optimized selves with others. The Project will be identifying a series of Partners who will help generate resource recommendations for survey participants – organizations or opportunities for them to help others while increasing their happiness. Like a matchmaking service for purpose, the logic is that as you increase your “MeDP” by helping others in an area where you’re optimized, you get a dopamine rush that literally increases your happiness. This intrinsic and long-lasting rewards system, when scaled, is how the H(app)athon Project hopes to shift the power of a GDP focused world to one centered on well-being versus wealth.

Dr. Mark Williamson, Director of Action for Happiness and a speaker during the Project’s launch notes, "The H(app)athon Project is a highly innovative and refreshingly collaborative approach to using technology to help solve modern life's greatest challenge: finding practical ways to improve both personal and societal wellbeing. It’s also joining an amazing global movement of people, organizations and activities supporting the first United Nations Day of Happiness and emphasizing the need to bring happiness to others versus just focusing on yourself.”

The Launch

The Survey will be launching in the following cities as part of a series of H(app)athon Workshops where participants play a game to save the fictional country of “Eudaimonia” by leveraging emerging technology:

Partners/Sponsors

The H(app)athon Project is seeking sponsors. For more information, please email john@happathon.com.

H(app)athon Committee Members

For more information

Media Inquires

Jessica Hasson
(310) 421-1050
jessica@pulppr.com

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Happathon

The H(app)athon Project helps people identify and track their values as a way to measure what makes life count. Based on data collected from mobile surveys and passive data, users are provided with a volunteer recommendation based on their results. The science of positive psychology shows that living to your values and being altruistic increases intrinsic wellbeing, which is why the H(app)athon Project is 'connecting happiness to action' via their surveys and “Happy City Workshops” that inspire citizens to create positive campaigns for their communities focused on increasing worth versus wealth. For more information, visit www.happathon.com.


The H(app)athon Project Introduction Video

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