yes-helmet

Increase the usage of bicycle helmet among bicyclists.

Description: Team Yes Helmet is part of 2018 GTI SDG Summer School. We are dedicating to work on SDG Goal 3.6, by 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents. We are focusing on encouraging helmet-wearing to increase the safety for bicyclists around the globe, to raise awareness, bring behavioral change, and create social change through mobile-based solutions and social media campaigns.

Members: yychern, nyanduko, and collengine; Our team members come from Southeast Asia and Africa, based in Geneva, Switzerland, collaborating with innovation labs in Europe and East Asia.

Problem Statement: According to a study (Nicaj et al., 2009), in New York, head injuries contributed to more than three-quarters of bicyclist deaths. Only 3 percent of bicyclists were documented to be wearing helmets at the time of the fatal crash. The project aims to contribute to SDG Goal 3.6, “by 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.” We are focusing on encouraging helmet-wearing to increase the safety for bicyclists around the globe, to raise awareness, bring behavioral change, and create social change through mobile-based solutions.

High mortality rate due to bike accidents; Non-compliance to set helmet laws or lack of laws altogether; People are not self- motivated to wear helmets.

Solutions: Independent mobile-application, gamification of image processing feature, potential to work with business to incentivize. Software Development: Machine-learning helmet-detecting mobile application, gamification and incentivize users to wear the helmet. Behavioural Change: Market research, data collection, and social media campaigns in partnership with IO and NGO.

Theory of Change: The theory of change of project yes helmet is to achieve the long-term outcome of reducing the mortality rate for bicycle-related accidents with helmet wearing, through the short-term outcome of raising awareness, induce behavioral change by encouraging a habit of wearing a helmet, and create a social trend of wearing a helmet.

The activities proposed are through a gamified mobile application that embodies machine learning and image classification to identify selfie images that contain bicycle helmets. Users of the mobile application will earn points and get rewards. Another activity proposed is to use the same application to unlock an NFC or Bluetooth bicycle lock by taking a selfie, a verified selfie with a helmet could unlock a bicycle. The third activity proposed to include a social media campaign in collaboration with NGO or International Organization, to mobilize social media users and create a social trend of wearing the helmet.

The expected output of the projects is the number of users using the application and number of participants in the social media campaign. The input of the project are the works that we have done before and during the summer school, which include an online survey, on-site interview, exploration of partnership, programming of application, and documentation.

The envisioned ideal business model for the mobile application is to partner with the existing bicycle sharing service provider, as well as ethical FMCG business and F&B franchise to provide incentives to users in the form of vouchers.

Resources Needed/ Advices Needed: Advices from game design expert and behavioral change expert. Access to bicyclists community in different cities, access to bicycle-sharing community in different cities.

Collaboration Needed: If you are a developer, we would love to have your help in refining and developing the App. If you are a bicyclists, do help us to share the idea/ app to your community, do give us feedback: teamyeshelmet@gmail.com

Reference and links:  Twitter: https://twitter.com/yeshelmet  L. Nicaj , C. Stayton , J. Mandel-Ricci , P. McCarthy , K. Grasso , D. Woloch & B. Kerker (2009) Bicyclist Fatalities in New York City: 1996–2005, Traffic Injury Prevention, 10:2, 157-161.  Fischer, C. M., et al. “Prevalence of bicycle helmet use by users of public bikeshare programs.” Annals of Emergency Medicine 60.2(2012):228-231.  缪明月, 栗继红, and 蔡娜. “非机动车驾驶人佩戴安全头盔相关问题.” 交通工程 1(2007):12-14.