| Wirefile Health Informatics |
Dietary information on your mobile phone 18th September 2005 |
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Carl Kiernan is on a mission to bring people more information about the food they eat.
“On the back of most packets of food is a table of nutritional content, with information such as recommended daily allowances,” said Kiernan. “The information is of no use to anyone. It's much more effective to get a specific breakdown of what's in what you want to eat or what you've already eaten.”
To address that problem, Kiernan founded Wirefile Systems, which distributes a new software programme called Handheld Health. The software runs on mobile phones and allows people to manage their food intake. “If you've gone over your daily limit, your mobile phone will alert you,’' Kiernan said.
A native of Westmeath, Kiernan graduated from Dublin City University with a business degree and completed a Masters in Information Technology at NUI Maynooth. Between 1993 and 1999, he worked for CSK Software, Cognotec, Credit Bank in Brussels and Ulster Bank Group Treasury.
After leaving Ulster Bank, he developed anti-money laundering and financial compliance software programmes.
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“In 2002, I met a doctor from New York who told me about a patient who couldn't manage or control their eating habits,” Kiernan said. “We set about developing software that could be easily downloaded to a mobile and would act as a virtual personal dietician.”
The result was Handheld Health, a programme that can graph and chart standard foods and monitor food intake.
Users can download programmes that are unique to their needs, according to Kiernan.
“For example, say a pregnant woman wants to monitor the amount of folic acid she's consuming. Once she enters what she has eaten [into her phone], her mobile will tell her whether she has consumed enough of the vitamin or not.
Similarly, if an elderly person wants to monitor their fibre intake, they can download a programme to suit them.”
The packages are divided into budget, premium and corporate, with prices starting at €4.There is no additional cost once the programme has been downloaded. The software is already used by slimming companies such as Unislim, but Kiernan wants to take the business further.
“We want to introduce incentives for companies selling food,” he said. “We're already working on marketing strategies which can run side-by-side with food product campaigns.” |
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