PowrKidz improves children’s health and wellbeing

Digital start-up PowrKidz has developed and launched its unique digital health and wellbeing service for primary and secondary schools in under six months, using the OutSystems application platform.

The solution includes an easy-to-use digital platform to help educators deliver effective, safe and fun exercise classes, and report on children’s health and wellbeing, both at school and at home. It addresses the problem of 79 percent of pupils failing to meet nationally recognised fitness levels and high obesity rates in children entering secondary school.

With such an important goal, PowrKidz wanted to get to market quickly, providing its digital service and related exercise equipment to England’s schools. In order to achieve this, it needed a digital application to support the teachers leading the exercise classes, together with live reporting for them and motivating feedback for students. 

The company chose the OutSystems application platform to increase development speed and remove technology barriers that would have made its product launch a lot more time-consuming and resource intensive. As a result, a single developer at Powrkidz was able to build a bespoke digital platform in less than six months, which is already in use by 5,000 students and 700 teachers at 20 schools.

Soon after launching PowrKidz, the arrival of Covid-19 completely changed the needs of students. The unrivaled agility of OutSystems enabled PowrKidz to quickly make significant changes so that it could adapt. For example, delivering home-workout routines to help keep students remain active even while at home.

Tom Ciullo, Director, PowrKidz, said:

“Having worked with OutSystems for more than eight years, I knew the development project would easily have taken three to four times longer by taking another approach. We’d have needed more funding, more developers, and there’s a chance the project would never have gotten off the ground. Instead, in less than a year, we’ve successfully launched, proven the concept, and refined the product in response to feedback and the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Willem van Enter, Vice President EMEA, OutSystems, said:

“The PowrKidz application is a great example of our mission to build applications fast, right, and for the future. PowrKidz was able to leverage the OutSystems Forge, our free repository of reusable apps, widgets, themes, templates, and connectors that support any form factor, be it a tablet, smartphone, laptop, or smart TV.”

PowrKidz is now looking at incorporating new capabilities, as the application is rolled out to more schools. Integration with wearable devices is already underway – to help ‘gamify’ exercise and motivate children – and virtual workouts will also soon be available to help teachers connect with kids even when they’re in different locations.

Here at PowrKidz our mission is simple. Giving children the power of Healthy, Active Lives. By blending technology and exercise we have created a space where children can enjoy fitness, health and wellbeing activities and be rewarded and motivated for doing so. This helps forge a positive relationship with their own wellness that will stay with them for years to come. Powrkidz also puts the health and well-being of our children into the hands of parents, and teachers. Our digital platform provides curriculum focussed, video led teaching resources and interactive sessions that can transform the learning experiences of our children.

Measuring progress is key, Powrkidz produces real time reportable data against key curriculum markers to give educators and parents a thoroughly detailed insight into their children’s participation and achievements across a host of fitness, health and wellbeing modules.

We’re on a mission to lead the fightback against rising rates of childhood obesity and inactivity across the nation.