Ruth Thomson from Cambridge Consultants gave a presentation on the quantified self movement at the Big Data London Conference. The quantified self involves incorporating technology to track various inputs, states, and performance metrics about oneself. Interest in self-quantification is growing due to the availability of sensors, smartphones as data collection hubs, and cloud storage for aggregating data. As more devices connect to collect data about individuals and their environments, this could enable inferences about people's needs and wants. Cambridge Consultants is well-positioned to develop innovative connected systems for measuring health, wellness and performance as part of the quantified self.

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Quantitative Self
Ruth Thomson
Big Data London Conference – 7th May 2014
BIG DATA - Quantified Self

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Cambridge Consultants
 Over 400 engineers, designers, scientists, and consultants.
 Delivering innovative product development for our clients across many market sectors including
medical, sports & fitness, enterprise, and personal care.
 We work with our clients at all stages from concept generation, through prototyping to transfer
to manufacture & implementation of systems.

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Quantified self
 What is it?
 Why are we interested?
 Why now?
 What’s next?

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Quantified self – what is it?
 The Quantified Self is a movement to incorporate technology into data acquisition
on aspects of a person's daily life in terms of inputs (e.g. food consumed, quality of
surrounding air), states (e.g. mood, arousal, blood oxygen levels), and performance
(mental and physical).
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantified_self
 Data measurements about me and/or my surroundings, to provide me with
actionable information to enable me to be healthier / fitter / better at X, Y, Z
Ref: me

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Connected
Health
Self quantifying
Body hacking
Digital Health
Health &
Wellness
eHealth
QUANTIFIED
SELF
Wearable tech
There are many different names for this area and related areas
Performance &
technique monitoring
Life logging
Health 2.0

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Quantified self
 What is it?
 Why are we interested?
 Why now?
 What’s next?

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How well am I doing?
..activity/ # of steps…
…speed…
…heart rate…
How has my
performance
improved over
time?
How am I doing in
relation to my
peers?
How can I improve
my technique?
Have I drunk
enough liquid?
Whoever we are, we have many questions about our bodies and our surroundings…

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I have a chronic condition, I want to monitor
my wellbeing over time to help me and my
doctor best manage my care
How well am I
sleeping?
I have a bad back,
how is my posture?
Can I improve it?
Whoever we are, we have many questions about our bodies and our surroundings…

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So we have lots of questions!
Galvanic skin
response
ECG EEG
EMGActivity level
Distance
travelled
Speed Calories
burned
Medication
adherence
Glucose
levels
Pulse ox
Ambient
temperature
…and there are lots of parameters about our bodies & our surroundings
that we can measure / infer to give us the answers…

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 explosion of new products/systems

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Quantified self
 What is it?
 Why are we interested?
 Why now?
 What’s next?

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Technology availability
 The necessary components are now available at a cost, size and performance that
makes new products/systems possible

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Uptake of smartphones reduces the cost of entry for new products/systems…
 The uptake of smartphones means that most consumers already have part of the
system in their pocket
 Quantified self systems can effectively ‘piggy back’ on this existing infrastructure
– Cost benefits
– Data capture is effectively omnipresent
On average, there were two smartphones for every nine
people on earth, or 1.4 billion smartphones, by the end of
2013.
ref: www.businessinsider.com

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 The rising adoption of cloud storage means that consumers have a place to store all
the data that they are gathering about themselves
 The increasing smart infrastructure of data storage means that it can be accessible
and secure
Data storage and accessibility in the cloud

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Quantified self
 What is it?
 Why are we interested?
 Why now?
 What’s next?

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Internet of thing  internet of things
 Today we are limited to single devices communicating in silos to
the cloud
 We are moving towards a future of truly connected devices where
the devices will communicate intuitively with each other, gathering
data about you and the environment and allowing smart inferences
on what you want/need

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The hub moves beyond the smart phone
 Today the smart phone provides a convenient hub for connection to the cloud
 However it is not the ideal hub for many scenarios… bathrooms, exercising…
 We are moving towards a future of intelligent passive nodes

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real BIGdata
We’re just at the start…. It’s extremely exciting to be part of the next stages in
this trend!

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At Cambridge Consultants we are the best team in the world to develop and
implement innovative connected systems
 We have all the required technical skills under one roof AND the experience of designing and
implementing system architectures such that we can balance the requirements across the
system to ensure we meet your commercial and technical requirements.
 Contact us if you’d like to learn more about how we could support your connected system
development

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A bit about the presenter…
Ruth Thomson leads the Consumer business at Cambridge
Consultants. She has more than 12 years’ experience of working
with consumer brands, using technology to deliver innovative
customer experiences across a range of products and services.
Cambridge Consultants brings significant skills & experience to the
development of novel connected systems and Ruth is increasingly
applying these skills in the Consumer sector. Work includes
sports & fitness technology development, wellness and other
personal care applications. Across these areas we are using low
cost sensors in a smart system design to measure aspects of their
performance, technique and well-being to provide actionable
information to the consumer.
Contact Ruth at ruth.thomson@cambridgeconsultants.com

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Cambridge UK
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