Vishal Gondal, who had established IndiaGames, one of India’s largest online gam
ing de
velopers, which was later acquired by Disney has now started GOQii, a new offering that endeavors to make a permanent lifestyle change by embedding health, fitness & giving into an individual’s daily life.
GOQii’s unique ecosystem integrates wearable technology, expert-led personalized coaching and elements of social philanthropy to encourage users to make a sustainable shift toward a healthier and more fulfilling lifestyle. This shift is achieved by acknowledging and integrating the ‘human factor’ which is often the most crucial element for lasting lifestyle change. A GOQii personal coach works with the user’s data to provide customized advice on a regular basis, and to keep the user motivated and on track to success by goal reinforcement. This unique approach differentiates GOQii from existing apps, wearable gadgets and online solutions, which only provide simple data collection tools or diet logging apps, leading to short-term results.
“The GOQii philosophy is driven by the passion for healthy and meaningful living. Having used many other wearable tech products, I felt that something was missing – they were just a bunch of gadgets, apps and online data-crunching solutions, which lacked sustained engagement, motivation, customized advice or a human connection. I needed something more than data; I was looking for a complete solution for a more fulfilling way of life. With GOQii we have created the solution,” says Founder and CEO Vishal Gondal.
GOQii is comprised of:
GOQii Band, an advanced fitness tracker has a bevy of slick features including a full touch display, a vibrating alarm, ultra-lightweight water resistant construction with skin sensitive materials, and automatic wireless syncing via Bluetooth LE. Key functions include a watch, a motion sensor which can track steps, calories, distance, active time and for the first time in the world,Karma Points, a virtual currency for philanthropy and the human connection by enabling the GOQii coach to remotely vibrate the band to motivate the user.
GOQii Experts, an array of health, fitness and habit experts responsible for designing GOQii Life, also aid users in making sense of their data along with training the coaches on the methodology and techniques related to motivation, nutrition, fitness and habit development. The league includes Dr. Shriram Nene MD, FACS, in Vascular, Thoracic, and Cardiothoracic Vascular surgeon with over twenty years of experience and is affiliated with various hospitals in United States. Dr. Kendra Markle, affiliated with Stanford Prevention Research Center, is a leading researcher on stealth health and ways to use mobile and social media to change behavior and improve health. Luke Coutinho, an author, nutritionist, speaker and health coach believes in coaching people to make ‘shifts’ in their lifestyles to achieve their health goals. Vishal Gondal is a sportsman, fitness enthusiast, gaming guru, and founder of Indiagames (later acquired by Disney).
GOQii Coach, the team, consists of leaders from the fields of fitness, sports, nutrition and behavioral science. They are trained to apply scientific methods to enable users to make sustainable and incremental changes towards a more healthy and active lifestyle. Users are seamlessly connected to their personal
GOQii coach via an app and pre-scheduled monthly video/audio calls. This system is minimally intrusive, while simultaneously giving users flexibility for on-demand access as well as regular communication with their coach. Data collected by the band and apps is viewed and analyzed by the coaches, not only to motivate users to achieve their health and fitness goals, but also to ensure that they make incremental changes to make a shift towards positive habits by focusing on a sustained engagement and goal reinforcement. They can also remotely vibrate the user’s band to provide the human connection.
GOQii Karma, inspired by the belief that the most fulfilling achievement in life is to give back, is a platform that enables its users to support social causes of their preference. A user’s steps are used as ‘sweat’ equity by converting their effort into Karma points, which are then used to make donations towards their social causes of interest.
At the backend, GOQii has developed a network of donors and recipient non-profit organizations to convert Karma points donated by its users to actual monetary donations. GOQii is partnering with Oxfam India, a member of an international confederation of 17 organizations working in more than 90 countries to find solutions to poverty and injustice around the world. The company offers subscription for GOQii, which includes all elements of its ecosystem (i.e. band, experts, coach and karma) for a period of 12 and 6 months. It has just released its beta in India for a select few early users. This will be rolled out to the United States, United Kingdom, UAE and Singapore in phases, as GOQii builds up its capacity.
GOQii is backed by leading angel investors: Amit Singhal (Google), Anil Godhwani (Habitera), Bharat Vasan (MyBasis), Dr.Shriram Nene, Esther Dyson, Goutam Godhwani (Simply Hired), Kanwaljit Bombra (Dell), Madhuri Dixit-Nene (Bollywood Actress), Mahesh Samat (Epic), Mike McNamara (Flextronics), Prashant Gulati (TiE), Sanjay Parthasarthy (Indix), Sanjay Vaswani, Steve Luczo (Segate), Taher Khorakiwala and Vijay Vashee (Microsoft).