Digital health engagement platform dacadoo and the United Arab Emirates’ Daman Health Insurance announced a new mobile game that encourages players to log steps and stay active.
The new Daman Tamshi game is built on dacadoo Go, the company’s customizable, white-label geolocation app that uses rewards and friendly competition to engage its users. The platform calculates a user’s “Step Score” to provide a rough estimate of their activity level, and includes daily quests, experience points, challenges, team battles and other gamification tools for additional motivation.
Daman Tamshi, specifically, is built with a Middle Eastern user base in mind with Arabic language support and other trappings reflecting Middle Eastern culture. And, with Abu Dhabi set to host the 2019 Special Olympics World Summer Games, Daman Health and dacadoo have announced a community-wide activity target of 1 billion steps within a four-week timespan. Should the goal be met, Daman Health said that it will donate 500,000 Dirhams towards the Games.
Why it matters
The past decade has seen the obesity rates rise in the Middle East, diabetes and other so-called “diseases of affluence” that could be mitigated by an active lifestyle. Any additional activity Daman Tamshi can generate across this demographic would play a part in increasing overall wellness and reducing the costly impact of these conditions.
Peter Ohnemus, founder and CEO of dacadoo, also noted in a statement that Daman Tamshi represents his company’s first foray into this market.
“We are very happy that the leading health insurer Daman Health chose dacadoo to partner for this fantastic project in the United Arab Emirates,” he said. “As this is our first collaboration in the Middle East, we worked hard to offer a fully localized Arabic version for this purpose and look forward to how the population of the United Arab Emirates will react and use Daman Tamshi.”
What’s the trend
Gamification features are present throughout a number of digital health products. These products often range from targeted, health-focused experiences like Daman Tamshi or Zombies Run! to health-education games like HemoHeroes, to entertainment-first consumer offerings with incidental wellness benefits like Pokémon Go.
