'Next-generation' app rewards providers of fitness data

Five years' experience in the green sector has given Wang Zhongming, 33, a better understanding of how waste is fortune in the wrong place. Last year Wang, an environmental expert by training, decided to start unearthing the value of vast but untapped resources in the information-technology industry. Experimenting with an idea he calls the "next-generation internet", where users are paid for data they upload, Wang has founded a start-up with a social application where users are rewarded for fitness workouts with coupons for everything from coffee and theatre tickets to spa sessions and yoga classes.

I worked for about five years in the environmental sector, first with a UN organisation and then with an e-waste recycling company in Japan. Before I quit last March, I spent a year in Tianjin working on a project to facilitate an industrial symbiosis for about the 2,000 factories in the city's Binhai New Area. The idea was to utilise resources better, as one factory's waste could be another's raw material. Such experience gave me a deep understanding of the notion that "waste is fortune in the wrong place". This idea actually applies to the internet industry, even though I did not have technical expertise. The smartphone app known as Bici tries to uncover the value of sports data by making it meaningful so that somebody wants to pay for it.

It encourages users to get healthier through very simple exercises such as long-distance walking. Users don't need to go to a gym, and they can achieve their targets on the way to work. Then they are rewarded when they finish each exercise. For instance, a free cup of coffee for 1,000 steps, or a spa [session] for 5,000 steps. These incentives offer a quicker reward than the health benefit of a workout, as it usually takes at least several months to see improvement and many people give up before seeing the effect, which has kept people from exercising.

Data of people's walking routes has inherent business value when enough data is collected. Such information could help businesses make marketing decisions. So businesses such as coffee shops and yoga centres are willing to pay for such information. That is the basic idea, and our reward providers agree with that, even though at the initial stage we don't have so many users yet. They're also willing to provide these rewards because the app is a good branding opportunity for them - linking their brands with the positive image of "health".