CUSTOMER STORY • START-UP

Active For Good's New Equation: Transforming Calories Burned into Calories Earned for the World's Starving Children

THE CHALLENGE

Find an easy and sustainable way to

generate billions of packets of Ready-

to-Use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF) to

treat millions of children under the

age of five worldwide who suffer from

Severe Acute Malnourishment (SAM).

THE RESULT

A new program allowing health-

conscious employees throughout the

U.S. to turn calories they have burned

(as measured by their personal exercise

tracking devices) into the equivalent of

life-saving emergency RUTF calories

for malnourished children worldwide.

COMPANY: Active For Good

FOUNDED: 2014

INDUSTRY: Technology

RESULTS, OUTCOMES, AND ACHIEVEMENTS

U.S. employees better their own health while engaging in a life-saving program serving at-risk children.

Technology works with any wearable fitness tracking platform, including Active For Good’s own solution.

UNICEF Kid Power is a second program using a technology platform built by Active For Good that currently reaches 3,000 elementary schools.

Since 2013, 1 billion calories tracked by U.S. exercise devices have been converted into over 2.3 million RUTF packets, saving the lives of 15,346 children.

Pilots with tech companies helped scale the program to corporate HR departments across the U.S.

“We’re just using a larger purpose

as an extra motivator. People want to

understand and see that their actions

can really make a difference in the

world. That is the kind of deep

intrinsic drive we are tapping into.”

— Troy Hickerson, Co-founder of Active For Good

Globally, 16 million children under the age of five have

Severe Acute Malnourishment (SAM) and are on the brink

of death from starvation. Most live in south Asia and

Sub-Saharan Africa.

But there is now a solution to combat this aspect of global hunger, reverse the ill effects of SAM, and ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. SAM is both preventable and treatable with Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF), an energy-dense, micronutrient-enriched peanut butter distributed in a package that looks like an oversized ketchup packet. Requiring no water, designed to stay fresh indefinitely, and easy to administer, it has been revolutionary in treating kids. Only 3 packets of RUTF a day for 6 to 8 weeks can save a child’s life and put them on the path toward health.

One of the world’s largest producers of RUTF is MANA Nutrition, a nonprofit organization founded in 2009. Every day, over 500,000 packets of MANA (Mother Administered Nutritive Aid) get distributed world-wide through a vast network of NGO partners. Unfortunately, MANA Nutrition and other charitable and government aid providers of RUTF can only address one-third of the world’s need for this food. But these kids simply cannot wait.

Enter Active For Good

Active For Good, a non-profit tech spinoff of MANA Nutrition, was formed in 2013 to ramp up the volume of RUTF packets donated. The new venture developed a unique program to attract U.S. companies and their employees as participants in fitness and nutrition challenges with the goal of doubling the global budget for RUTF packets. Active For Good’s vision is to bring malnutrition to an end, once and for all.

“Right now, these kids are in need of urgent, medical intervention; they are precariously dangling on the edge between life and death,” explains Troy Hickerson, Co-founder of Active For Good.

Beyond the immediate health crisis, malnutrition also has huge implications for the global workforce. According to the World Food Programme, a dollar invested in hunger prevention could return between $15 and $139 in benefits.

In this way, Active For Good’s vision is both short-term and long-term.

“What if you COULD donate your lost weight?

We decided to focus on the active part and

relay a positive message around using exercise

to provide food, and connecting wellness for

both parties.”

— Troy Hickerson

Beauty in Simplicity

The core idea is simple: Active For Good inspires participants to get active so that people everywhere can live healthier lives. The company runs financially sponsored activity challenges where fitness trackers count calories burned which are then converted into nutritious calories in the form of RUTF packets for kids in developing nations who need them.

The program leverages the current interest in exercise and weight loss in developed countries. “We’re just using a larger purpose as an extra motivator,” said Hickerson. “People want to understand and see that their actions can really make a difference in the world. That is the kind of deep intrinsic drive we are tapping into.”

Hickerson and his co-founder, Mark Moore, like to tell the story of how the initial inspiration for their company came from a 2012 CNN report about congregants at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA who had collective-ly lost 250,000 pounds. Through their “Daniel Plan,” small groups had exercised together on a regular basis to meet their goals.

The MANA Nutrition staff joked that it was unethical for the church-goers to have “lost” that weight; rather, they should have donated it to help undernourished kids.

The response: “I wonder how we could actually do that!”

The team then brainstormed ways to help people make healthy choices for themselves while helping to eliminate global malnutrition. “What if you COULD donate your lost weight? We decided to focus on the active part and relay a positive message around using exercise to provide food, and connecting wellness for both parties,” said Hickerson.

Since 2014, UNICEF USA’s Kid Power program has worked with the Active For Good innovation team to develop the concept, build the technology platform, and scale the program to over 500 participating elementary school kids. UNICEF began managing the entire program in 2018.

The Next Step: Workplace Activity Challenges

Inspired by a Singularity University (SU) startup incubator they participated in, Active For Good’s co-founders are now preparing to scale the program to a different audience and begin working with employees whose companies host “Active For Good” health challenges for their workers.

Active For Good knows that today’s employers are looking for ways to promote employee health and wellness through meaningful engagement. “There’s great receptivity to this type of program among HR teams,” noted Hickerson.

Unlike many SU startups that are developing and testing new exponential technology applications, Active For Good is leveraging existing technologies to connect customers to a larger social mission and global challenge to feed those in need.

“We are connecting people to a great cause by leveraging some of the latest wearable tech and health tracking trends. We're focused on helping employers better engage their workforce to get active and healthy together,” said Active For Good team member Luke Mysse.

Users no longer see their fitness tracking devices as only for their own personal gain, but also as a way to bring empathy and human connection to their everyday lives and scale their own efforts through company programs. It becomes a win-win-win situation, where active employees, companies, and malnourished kids all come out ahead.

After each workplace activity challenge, Active For Good provides a full report back to the participants—to tell them their individual and collective impacts. Currently, all of the life-saving packets unlocked by Active for Good‘s challenges are being sent to South Sudan and Northern Uganda in partnership with Save the Children.

The Tech Involved

“We check our egos at the door,” said Hickerson. “Users can use any platform they want.”

For the duration of each 30-day activity challenge, partici- pants use any device or smartphone app that tracks steps and activity.

Or participants can use the Active For Good wellness challenge platform, for use either as a separate device or a smartphone app. Company human resources administrators use the platform to create teams or allow self-forming teams. The secure, hosted solution also easily deploys to remote offices and workers. In addition, Active For Good’s technology preserves the users’ privacy by only pulling in data necessary to track calorie-burning activities.

“We realized that we are a technology

company that has a platform that can scale

to solve a global problem. That's exactly the

type of work that SU is organized to support.

It’s a really good fit.”

— Troy Hickerson

Mindset Shift

Active For Good’s journey at SU has been a bit different than most. While they came to SU in 2015 with most of their technology already developed, the turning point came with the entrepreneurial mindset shift toward growing an innovative business that uses technology for good.

Just being on the NASA campus surrounded the Active For Good team with a whole new vibe. The SU programs connected them to a community of other social entrepre-neurs, while they got immersed in learning about impact startups, especially for remote teams.

“We realized that we are a technology company that has a platform that can scale to solve a global problem. That's exactly the type of work that SU is organized to support. It’s a really good fit,” noted Hickerson.

The co-founders have found a home in Silicon Valley through SU and its 200,000-strong global community. They were able to broaden their perspective beyond the human-itarian aid world where they began, and have ventured into the entrepreneurial world of using technology to end a very real humanitarian crisis.

The SU community welcomed them and helped conceptualize their work as an impact business, opening the door to new customer relationships and investor conversations. With SU’s encouragement, Active For Good is now evolving away from a nonprofit model into a B Corp, one focused on making a profit but also deliver-ing on the greater good. As a benefit corporation, Active For Good will pursue impact investments and a scalable business model. They are currently looking to expand their customer base, improve the technology experience, and aggressively scale to 5 million+ participants.

“It's the right kind of alignment for us,” said Hickerson. “It’s much better than working at the discretion of grant administrators who may or may not choose your program for investment.”

The Real Value of SU

The Active For Good team’s evolution points to the crucial aspect of the SU experience that goes well beyond technology development. As a large innovation ecosystem, SU is also heavily involved in helping startups gain traction, leverage their widening network, and determine the right type of business model.

Like other social entrepreneurs, Hickerson and his team started out with audacious goals. But they soon ran into innumerable obstacles and everyday business details. “We could have been discouraged and blown away,” he said.

“But at SU, it is invigorating to be in an innovative and supportive environment where other people talk about solving big problems and discussing what real change looks like. By going through this together we all sharp-en, challenge, and encourage each other. I look forward to continuing to take advantage of that in the future, and contributing back.”

“As a result of being a part of the SU community, we've made a lot of headway with running pilots at technology companies, completing design sprints that helped refine our business model, and the like,” explained Hickerson. “That's been huge for us. Nailing down what your slide deck looks like, how to get in front of a company and explain what you do in a way that they understand and can get behind has been invaluable. It kind of unlocked a door between us and a larger corporate audience—a door we may not have even known was there!“

“We are focused on the practical for the here and now. We are not inventing the next genetic this or robotic that or space travel. We just want to pursue this mission that takes creativity, partnerships, and a lot of diligence to solve a problem that should have been solved already. Once we dove in, the structure to support us, was there at SU,” noted Hickerson.

“...it is invigorating to be in an innovative and

supportive environment where other people

talk about solving big problems and discussing

what real change looks like.”

— Troy Hickerson

Exponential Mentoring For the Win

The other major component of SU’s value has come to the Active For Good team in the form of outstanding entrepre-neurial advisors. Pascal Finette, SU Faculty Chair of Entre-preneurship and Open Innovation, and others have served as business mentors to Active For Good, inviting them to join their extensive networks. These mentors have acting as the startup’s sounding board. In addition, SU’s experienced mentors are helping with B Corp navigation, tweaking some of the technology’s foundations, and offering strong guidance on operating remote teams.

“We were introduced to a whole new group of high-power customers and partners in the Silicon Valley area,” explained Hickerson. “You sometimes forget where you’ve met people in your life. More and more these days, I can say, ’They came from SU!’”

As company leaders Hickerson and Mysse began to see the big picture through strategic conversations with peers, mentors, and teachers at SU, their shared experience helped shape a common understanding and alignment they have found invaluable as they move forward. Active For Good is now a company of 15 people that is well-positioned to make an exponential impact and meet their goal of scaling to 5 mil-lion+ participants to help end severe malnutrition among the world’s neediest children.

The Power of Stepping Up to Exponential Impact

“We started as a non-profit with a clear mission to help malnour-ished kids. But as we explored the marketplace, ran programs for 50+ companies, and learned a ton, we realized we needed a scalable business model if we were to have an exponential impact and solve this problem for good.

Attending the SU Ventures course, living in the NASA dorms, go-ing to SU labs, I thought: what does this look like on an exponential level; how does this really impact the world? I was really struck with a sense of, yes we'll solve this. We'll make people healthier, and we'll help millions of kids not suffer from malnutrition. That's amazing.In fact, when you solve a global grand challenge like hunger, it brings levels of impact that you didn't anticipate. Lots of great things can happen if you have a more globally minded culture that has a direct connection to other people.

And others respond positively to what you are doing. I love to see that ‘ah-ha’ moment when we explain Active For Good for the first time. There is this intuitive ‘yes, of course’ that happens when you first see the two pieces fit together and understand that they are the answer that can bring better health to all involved.”

— Troy Hickerson, Co-founder of Active For Good

“... we realized we needed a

scalable business model if we

were to have an exponential

impact and solve this problem

for good.”

SU PROGRAMS

SU Ventures 2017

EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES

Networks & Computing Systems

GLOBAL GRAND CHALLENGES

Food

Health

SU and Active For Good At-a-Glance

About Singularity University

Singularity University (SU) is a global learning and innovation community using exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges and build an abundant future for all. SU’s collaborative platform empowers individuals and organizations across the globe to learn, connect, and innovate breakthrough solutions using accelerating technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and digital biology. A certified benefit corporation headquartered at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, SU was founded in 2008 by renowned innovators Ray Kurzweil and Peter H. Diamandis with program funding from leading organizations including Google, Deloitte, and UNICEF. To learn more, visit SU.org, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @SingularityU, and download the SingularityU Hub mobile app.

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