PoseRight

We are in a constant subconscious battle with gravity every day with regard to how we hold our bodies. Poor posture is a problem that close to 100% of people face. We spend a lot of time sitting in front of a screen and we often take up poor posture positions that set us up for musculoskeletal injuries like back and neck pains down the line. But are people aware and do they care? Some people feel invincible. But the one successful motivational force is pain. When people feel pain, they are more aware of how they hold their bodies.

There are a myriad of interventions made to solve these problems. Wearables that buzz when you slouch. Ergonomic interventions that involve redesigning the workstation. Engineering interventions that shut down your computer screen to alert you to take a walk. But people disable settings and override instructions and they sometimes forget to bring their wearable.

Obviously, we cannot change the design of our bodies. On the other hand, technology devices we use every day like laptops are poorly designed with regard to ergonomic use. So if we cannot change our bodies and the laptop design is not about to change soon, what gives? What can we do to help students and workers maintain good posture throughout their workday?

We are approaching this problem as a behavioral problem by exploring incentives or processes that help people maintain good posture. We believe a system that can give you feedback on your body posture as you work can make you aware of and further rectify your unhealthy habits.  We will use computer vision libraries like OpenPose we can identify the position of the eyes, neck, and shoulders as you work. Coupled with machine learning, we can track and learn about your posture and help users maintain a good one.