Our Health Data Belongs On An Open Market. More inputs -> better advice

Last month, Apple filed a patent for an Airpods sensor system that can measure biosignals and the electrical activity of a user’s brain.?

Depending on your opinion of Apple, you might be thinking:

1. What an exciting future where my Apple devices know me better and give me better health advice!
2. A tech company collecting data about my brain’s electrical activity is super creepy.

Apple’s brain-monitoring Airpods design isn’t the only new development in well-being technology.

In this article, we’ll dig into:

• The status quo relationship between your data and big tech.
• What a better relationship could look like.
• A new app called Minglo that promotes a better relationship between user data & technology companies.

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Well-being technology is a big and growing business

Analysts have estimated that Apple could bring in over $15 billion in healthcare revenue within the next five years. But they’re not the only tech company investing in products that aim to help us improve our health by collecting our psychological and physical health data.?

For example:

• Headspace gamifies meditation and exercise through its mobile application.?
• Nintendo has fitness games like Ring Fit Adventure on the Switch device.
• Oura tracks your sleep and activity data using a finger ring device.

These companies and many others like them use the data you feed their products to help you improve your life.?

But there are at least three major problems with this arrangement. I have written about the first two so I’ll mention them briefly then move on:

1. The company is not transparent with you about how they are using your data to build the experience you are having.?
2. The company does not let you decide which of your data is sold to third parties and how they use it.

This is the status quo across nearly all web-based products. The company’s policies about how they collect, store, analyze and sell your data is contained in the terms and conditions you have to agree to before using the product.?

It’s become commonplace and we don’t really worry about it that much.

Closed databases limit progress in well-being technology

The much larger problem is that your data is siloed by a single company and their software developers. If you are unhappy with the meditation guidance you’re receiving from Headspace and want to switch apps, you have to start over with a new product that knows nothing about you or your habits. If your Oura Ring breaks and you decide to track your sleep and physical activity with an Apple Watch instead, you lose the data history accumulated with Oura.?

At the same time these companies’ well-being researchers are constrained by their company’s amount and quality of data. Oura can’t build apps that make use of data from millions of Apple Watch owners. Headspace doesn’t know that your 10 minute daily meditation on their app is preceded by your Peloton bike ride each morning.

The larger and more accessible the data sets, the larger the number of brilliant scientists will be able to get their hands on it to create insights and inform how software developers build new products to make your life better.

There must be a better way?

Imagine if your data could be anonymized and pooled with others to create enormous datasets, which could then be accessed by all well-being researchers in the world, no matter which corporation, university, or research laboratory employs them.

This would be similar to how all scientists in the world have equal access to the James Webb Space Telescope’s datasets. The idea is that providing open access to JWST data will lead to greater scientific insights that benefit everyone more.?

Open data is more valuable than closed data because more people have the opportunity to create value with it.

Now imagine if you had control over the data you’re creating when you use mobile applications or fitness devices, and could share the data with your doctor, therapist, and anybody else. An example of this would be enabling your personal coach to construct a visual, real-time dashboard of your mental and physical health data from Headspace, Peloton, Apple, Oura, etc. … you get the idea. Today, your coach would rely on you to manually log into each app and take screenshots of the siloed data at a moment in time, then attach the photos to a messaging app for them to view.

Finally, let’s imagine getting paid to use apps like Headspace or Apple Health if you agree to let them pool your anonymized data with others for use by well-being researchers.

The thing we’re imagining is called an open data ecosystem. Until recently, this seemed pretty far-fetched. Today, blockchain software makes it possible to create secure, private, open-source data sets. Blockchains also enable users to easily maintain ownership and visibility of their data as it moves across different companies’ products, and even as it is accessed through open-sourced methods like in the personal coach example above.

Let’s explore an example of a blockchain open data ecosystem coming to market very soon.

Minglo’s open ecosystem for well-being data

Minglo is a blockchain-based open data ecosystem for well-being whose first app is scheduled to be released on the App Store and Google Play at the end of August.

They’re tackling the three problems faced by well-being app users: (1) lack of control and (2) ownership over their personal data, and (3) companies siloing their data and restricting access to it.

Minglo’s vision is to empower greater individual and social well-being through data ownership and control.

This is an incredibly ambitious project and I’m excited to dig into it here!

How Minglo’s Open Data Ecosystem Will Work

By enabling decentralized, user-controlled data ownership and exchange, Minglo aims to make data more valuable and then distribute the economic and social value of data more equitably than Apple, Meta, Peloton, and the like.

With Minglo:?

• Users can control and benefit from their data.?
• Businesses have ethical data access.?
• App user well-being is prioritized over profits.

Minglo is creating an open and liquid market for well-being data by allowing users to tokenize, own and trade their data as a digital asset. Blockchains are what make the tokenization, ownership, and transfer of digital assets possible.

Their first mobile application provides AI-powered well-being services to users with a focus on delivering culturally adaptive and personalized recommendations.?

In recognition of how critical one’s community is to their well-being, the app’s social graph maps relationships between users to understand the social connections that impact the individual’s well-being. The platform can then suggest ways to improve social well-being.

By leveraging aggregated user data and providing personalized recommendations to improve individual well-being, Minglo helps users to benefit more from sharing their data.

By decentralizing data storage and transactions using blockchain technology, Minglo prevents large data silos controlled by centralized entities. This means that any well-being researcher working for any company or institute anywhere in the world can use the data to draw conclusions and make recommendations — not just the researchers employed by the company collecting the data.

Minglo’s token economy?

Minglo’s open data ecosystem uses tokens to facilitate transactions (DATA) and governance (MGL) via a decentralized DAO governance model.

Users can choose to keep their data private or trade it on Minglo's decentralized data marketplace in exchange for $DATA tokens. This provides them agency and the ability to earn value from their data.

Token incentives encourage users to actively generate and share data, engage in governance, and provide peer support in the ecosystem.

Minglo’s token economy design may need to change as countries clarify how they intend to regulate digital assets like tokenized user data.

Through data ownership and control, Minglo empowers users to share their data willingly. In doing so, they contribute to improving collective well-being. Data becomes a public good.

Building for a better future

Over time, Minglo hopes to cultivate an ethical, open data economy that aligns individual interests with collective well-being.

You can learn more about Minglo on their website, here .

Look out for their mobile application, scheduled to launch on the App Store and Google Play at the end of August.

My experience with Minglo

Bankless Consulting worked with Minglo’s founding team to design the token economy and decentralized governance system. You can read about Minglo’s tokenomics and governance in great depth in the white paper that we contributed to.

Though I have worked with Minglo’s founding team, I have no financial stake in this project. That said, I am very hopeful that Minglo will succeed in demonstrating an important web3 use case for positive social impact.