Dec 7, 2022
Protecting Workers & Preventing Injuries thru SmartWatch Tech w/ Joe Hitt of GoX Labs
- BRT S03 EP60 (159) 12-4-2022
What We Learned This Week
- GoX Labs smart watch made in a partnership with Samsung, has sensors to check your health
- ‘Pre-care’ – preventive care can save lives, prevent injuries + save $ billions
- Who Pays the Bill? Business spending money on workmans comp, and cost of lost productivity
- Who sees the data? How the data is stored and read, employees decide who has access
- Joseph Hitt has a PhD in mechanical engineering, & a Background in the Military and DARPA
Guests: Joseph Hitt, PhD & Co-Founder of GoX Labs
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-hitt-ph-d-70933752
https://www.fitt-sci.net/copy-of-bio-page-bruce-floersheim
Dr. Joe Hitt served 25+ years on Active Duty in the US Army, culminating his career as a DARPA program manager. He has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, with a focus in robotics. He started and managed the largest government funded wearable robotics R&D program - Warrior Web. He formulated the strategy for Squad-X, a current DARPA program designed to link human, autonomous and semi autonomous ‘members’ of a small unit together in a seamless fashion for tactical operations. He is also a co-founder and current Chief Executive Officer for GoX Labs (www.goxlabs.com )
GoX Labs: Protect your team from the top three workplace injuries using Boost's AI and machine learning.
Overexertion
Repetitive movements of the lower back, shoulders, and ankles while using bad form are the number one cause of workplace injuries. Understand when and how often bad form is taking place.
Slips, Trips, & Falls
Fatigue can lead to major injuries. Be aware of onset by tracking swayed balance and cadence throughout the day.
Contact/Impact
Keep workers at a safe proximity from moving equipment or other workers. You choose the distance.
GoX Labs was co-founded by Joe Hitt and Bruce Floersheim, two service-disabled Army officers who went on to teach at the U.S. Military Academy and become recognized experts in the field of wearable robotics.
Because of injuries sustained from military service, our CEO, Joe Hitt, started the Warrior Web program at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) in 2012 to reduce musculoskeletal injury and enhance wellness and performance.
https://evonexus.org/news/new-watch-predicts-injuries-and-measures-blood-sugar/
November 21, 2019
Imagine if you could be warned about injuries before they even happen. Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore because now there’s a watch that alerts you before you injure yourself. Not only does the watch predict injuries, but it also measures your blood sugar levels too!
When the watch links to a pod that the user wears on their collar, it sends information to a cloud provider. This cloud can predict if you are going to hurt yourself if you’re lifting something the wrong way. Information about proper lifting techniques will be provided to the user beforehand, so the watch can alert them when they’re out of sync. Overall, the watch can help prevent heat stress, diabetes, dehydration, and back injuries when linked to a pod that the user wears on their collar.
Joe Hitt, the founder of GoX Labs, said:
Ninety percent of prediabetics do not know that they are prediabetic.
As for people with labor work or exercising, this is a perfect watch for them. The watch assesses your metabolic rate, how many calories you’re burning, and whether you’re doing “good lifts” or “bad lifts.” Hitt believes his product will prevent injuries and hours lost on the job.
He explained:
This is about a half a trillion dollars a year problem for the employer, talking from diabetes to workforce injury. Those premiums are going up for companies, and they’re also going up for the worker. The watch not only notifies you of bad posture while heavy lifting, but it can also predict your overall risk of injury at your workplace. It also has a step counter, a heart-rate monitor and can provide CO2 data.
The watch is derived from DARPA research. It measured VO2 data with 95% precision compared to clinical data, and it also predicts diabetes to 79% accuracy using machine learning. The device was recently accepted into a tech incubator at EvoNexus, allowing GoX Labs to receive expertise and funding to bring their devices to a commercial level.
This watch doesn’t only tell you what time it is but could save time, money, and pain. Would you wear this watch?
Notes:
Seg. 1
Using the smart watch to measure physiology, motion, and the brain , and this can also be done also through things like VR or AR glasses, or Haptic suits
Old-school way to think about this would be test done through an echocardiogram that information is just in your doctors office, not in the cloud, so the regulated an accurate data can be dispersed using the smart watch
Smart watch is the equivalent of a quad core computer inside, and measures health signals specific to you then it is stored in the cloud. Other examples of this of the Fitbit the Apple Watch the Garmin watch
Military uses devices like this called IVES, they are wearable goggles, goggles connected with satellite information, as well as connected to each other this helps the military to have of the moment information in the whole team
The watch can measure your blood sugar and blood pressure
In the USA there are 89 million workers who can be injured, 5% injured bad daily
Injury rates have stabilized in the US. Industries for this type of product are construction, warehouse workers, mining, UAV, robotics
Pre-care, can prevent injuries and alert people of the potential for injury
The safety industry is behind the times, not using technology to assist, akin to the 1970s where it’s just observational with clipboards and no real Data
Seg. 2
Joe and Bruce met at the army at West Point both instructors, also each had 20+ years in the military, They formed Fitt Scientific (in Fort Lee, VA), dealing with government logistics, working with the government, support of tech companies, Defense and space manufacturing, IT, robotics, engineering and services
GoX Labs created in a tech incubator with the goal to prevent injury, preventative injuries, and safety $.80 per dollar is spent on injuries and it’s a $3 trillion business that can be preventable, if you save just 10%, talking $300 billion saved in a year
Watch connects with Bluetooth & sensors that clip on your shirt and access movement. Preventative care using tech, productivity increase with pre-care clients government sector
There are app versions of the go X labs watch for Samsung and Apple smart watches wearables with 5G. Partner with Samsung to make the smart watch, called the Galaxy 5Pro
Worldwide company with clients in Australia USA, Canada, parts of Europe
1970s safety tape programs now with a clipboard and an observer on site doing inspection-based work, and post analysis, not using data to prevent
Another example of the insurance industry with actuarial info
B2B workman comps needed with worker safety, GoX Labs works in the B2B sector
B2C is performance based
Seg. 3
GoX Labs smart watch ahs a cost of $200, plus billions of savings for business
Who pays the bill? $250 billion a year is spent on workmen’s comp insurance
GoX Labs comes into a business, prevents injury and can cut costs, injury rates in America have leveled out as a stat, but $ costs are way up every year
GoX Labs can reduce injuries by half spend a $1, & save $5
Philosophical Issues like cultural, privacy, security need to address these issues
GoX Labs works with global Corp. and government, to know data is really secure. At the end of the day businesses would need unions and workers to sign on
The way the data is delivered, there are no names, just an ID number worker decides who gets to see and use their data
3 Data Sheets or Dashboards to view data: individual, group, organization - need to determine where the balance is on who can view
When GoX Labs first comes into a business they do an assessment, find the most serious 20% of potential injuries
Seg. 4
Mass Adoption, how do you get people to wear a HealthWatch? Why?
There is a need to make it personal, show value, how it can guard them or improve employee’s health
Example: steel company has 5 to 6% serious heat injuries, GoX labs worked with the steel company and they had zero (0) after implementing GoX Labs safety plan
Risk assessment, is it worth it to you?
Collect data, 60% major heat injury to staff, GoX Lab can determine with 86% accuracy
Demo with product base system is the watch, can also add motion sensors, that can check for heat stress like sweat loss, dehydration, heart rate and temperature
Design by Joe Hitt and Bruce Florsheim, Joe has a PhD in robotics, and he worked at DARPA he was 1 of 100 PM (program manager). DARPA is responsible for many great tech innovation like Siri voice command GPS global positioning system the Internet AI artificial intelligence Velcro solar satellites
DARPA has a $3 billion / year budget, currently working on things like the brain or synthetic biology and military capabilities
Seg. 5 – O/T
https://www.darpa.mil/ - creating breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security
DARPA has high standards, if you don’t produce they kick you out. Joe was there for four years which is a typical length. You have to bring the best ideas, an idea that can change the world and also can be implemented - discern between fantasy versus reality
DARPA board is a revolving door with ex-DARPA agents on the board, usually 20 to 30 people. A candidate has to convince them of ideas through sales and marketing with real data
The ROI return on investment of the entire $3 billion DARPA budget seems to work, as they create ‘moon shots’, with a 20 to 30% fail rate
GoX Labs funding, or strategic backers are companies that may deal in warehousing or construction or shipping, that could be high probabilities dealing with injuries.
Other examples of where Go X Labs could be used could be literally anywhere in Arizona dealing with heat injuries
Construction which has a low margin, so preventing injuries helps the bottom line, is very difficult to implement some safety standards with the culture
The Military is a potential customer, as there is a shift in the military towards wearables (googles in the field) to protect the human dimension, and connect soldiers
Robotics has had big advancements in the tech -
ex: Boston robotics working on new robot called LS3 the mule
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/us-army-goggles-troops-see-through-solid-walls
The US Army's New Goggles Let Troops See Through Solid Walls
In combat, situational awareness is key to survival.
The U.S. Army is developing Integrated Augmented Vision System (IAVS) goggles for close-combat forces — which involve both mounted and dismounted troops, namely, infantry.
This capability aims to send tens of thousands of new goggles into the field, which can also enable soldiers to check around corners, see in the dark, and even display digital maps and other tactical data on the goggles' lenses.
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