Special Episode: Active for Good

Charlie Gleason, a designer and developer at Heroku and Salesforce is in conversation with two members of the non-profit Active for Good: Troy Hickerson, its co-founder, and Luke Mysse, its managing director and brand strategist. Some years ago, Troy and Luke learned about Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, which is a powdered milk formula designed to provide vitamins and nutrients to malnourished children. Since such a simple product had the potential to help so many lives, they were inspired to find a way to increase its production and distribution. This led to them starting Active for Good. They knew that people weren't likely to make behavior changes unless there was a motivation. They decided that in order to help people get more fit, the distinguishing feature of their activity-tracking app would be to convert every minute of exercise into points, and those points into RUTF packets.

Active for Good has two types of challenges: an open public challenge, where you and your friends can try to meet a goal over the course of 30 days; and company challenges, where a company can invest in their people to encourage more movement. The aim of the app is to minimize screen time, get active, and help real people in the process. Activities aren't limited to strenuous exercise, either; housework, meditation, and other positive physical movements are also considered. Everyone from individuals to high schools to corporations have found the project useful.

Both Troy and Luke understand that changing your habits can be difficult. But they also know that it's just important to pick an activity and try it. Whether that's slowly gaining miles on a bike ride, or deciding which philanthropic project to get involved in, the most important thing is to just start doing it.

Links from this episode:

• Active for Good helps people stay motivated and engaged by connecting their activity to a great cause.
• Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food helps treat malnourished children by providing them with the nutrients they need
• A True Win-Win: How Being More Active Can Help Fight Malnutrition is our blog post where you can learn more about the Active for Good challenge.