Happathon

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

March 21, 2013

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:

London: Hub Culture London Pavilion, organized by Data Science London and BigDataWeek.
Oslo: A H(app)athon Scandinavia Workshop organized by Brainwells Norway.
Bogota: Organized by Centro Nacional de Consultoría, taking place at HubBogotá.
Tokyo: The H(appathon will be part of the Happy Day Project organized by Happiness Architect.
New York City: The H(app)athon will take place at Alley NYC.
Indianapolis: Big Car‘s Service Center, organized Cru, Kemyst, and Centric.
San Francisco: Taking place at NextSpace.
Bhutan: Taking place at the Thimphu Primary School, organized by Randall Krantz.
Cincinnati: Taking place in April organized by Viable Synergy, LLC.

Partners/Sponsors

The H(app)athon Project is seeking sponsors. For more information, please email [email protected].

H(app)athon Committee Members

John C. Havens. (Founder). Author, Speaker, Contributing writer for Mashable.
Alexis Adair. MS in Information and Knowledge Strategy; researched happiness at work.
Konstantin Augemberg. Founder, MeasuredMe Blog.
Dara Barlin. Founder, A Big Project.
Sean W. Bohan. Co-Founder, Decahedralist Consulting.
Mario Chamorro. Founder and Chief Happiness Officer, The Happy Post Project.
John Clippinger. Founder, ID3, MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group.
Mary Czerwinski. Microsoft Research Area Manager of the (VIBE) Research Group.
Scott L. David. Exec Director, Law, Technology & Arts Group at the University of Washington.
Joselyn DiPetta. Director of Diversity and Inclusion, axialent.
JaNaé Duane. Author, Professor, Founder of the Revolution Institute.
Johannes Eichstaedt. World Well-Being Project, University of Pennsylvania.
Susannah Fox. Associate Director, Digital Strategy. Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Taichi Fujimoto. CEO/Director, Happiness Architect.
Jon Hall. United Nations Development Program.
Chris Heuer. Founder/Chairman, Social Media Club.
William Hoffman. Director, World Economic Forum’s Telecommunications Industry Group.
Kat Houghton. Co-founder & Research Director at ilumivu.
Peggy Kern, World Well-Being Project, University of Pennsylvania.
Randall Krantz, Strategy Advisor at Druk Holding & Investments, Bhutan.
Lakshmi Arthi Krishnaswami. Founder, RyeCatcher.
Neal Lathia. Research Associate, Computer Laboratory at University of Cambridge.
Adam Laughlin. MIT Media Lab Front-end Developer, Boston Quantified Self Organizer.
Tim Leberecht. Chief Marketing Officer, NBBJ.
Kalev H. Leetaru. University of Illinois.
Amber Melhouse. Director, Business Development at Rakuten LinkShare Corporation.
Joshua Middleman. Director of Partnerships, Ashoka Changemakers.
Margie Morris. Senior Researcher, Intel.
Laura Musikanski. Co-Founder, The Happiness Initiative.
Gregory Park. World Well-Being Project, University of Pennsylvania.
Ernesto Ramirez. Community Organizer, Quantified Self.
JP Rangaswami. Chief Scientist, salesforce.com.
David Richeson. Chief Digital Officer, Fenton Communications.
Andrew Schwartz. World Well-Being Project, University of Pennsylvania.
Eiji Han Shimizu. Producer, The HAPPY movie.
Carlos Somohano. Founder, Data Science London.
Jason Sroka. Research Director at Selventa, Co-Founder, Boston Data Science Meetup.
Stan Stalnaker. Founding Director, Hub Culture LTD.
Stewart Townsend. Founder, Big Data Week.
Patrick VanKessel. Founder, What Keeps Us Going.
Kim Whittemore. Baby Quest Foundation, Institute for Sexual Medicine.