To Royan Kamyar, the first line of defense against heart disease, obesity, diabetes, anxiety, and a litany of other modern ills is to take better care of yourself. And taking care of yourself, Kamyar says, involves five major ingredients: sleeping right; eating well; exercising regularly; mindful meditation (i.e., actively managing your stress); and making time for your loved ones and social life.
Kamyar, a San Diego entrepreneur and medical doctor, says he gets this advice straight from the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM), a nonprofit based in Washington, DC, that works to improve public health through disease prevention programs, and through scientific and systems-based approaches to improving health and healthcare.
Yet Kamyar contends there is a widespread lack of innovation and tools that ordinary people can use to change their unhealthy habits and adopt healthier lifestyles.
In an effort to get folks to understand that the root of their ills lies in their sedentary lifestyle, Kamyar founded San Diego-based Owaves to help people make the transition to a healthier standard of living.
Changing America’s “diabesity” culture is an enormous challenge, but a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In this case, the first step is the Owaves app, which recently became available in the iTunes store as a free productivity app for the Apple iPad. Owaves plans to follow-up with an app for the iPhone as well.
The app is a relatively simple day planner for organizing your calendar, using an infographic wheel chart to help users visualize each 24-hour period. At the same time, the Owaves software represents a way to help Americans change the way they think about their lifestyle by incorporating the five ACPM-recommended ingredients to optimize personal health and wellness.
To Kamyar, it’s simply a matter of redefining time, or at least how we use it. “Time really hasn’t changed much,” he says. Owaves “is like time 2.0.”
Kamyar, who self-funded Owaves since he started the company a year ago, recruited a French iOS development firm to improve the design and create a proof-of-concept prototype.
“We think Owaves works because it is simple,” developer Thomas Castel wrote in an e-mail from France. “It is also what makes it different from its competitors: it has a few options that can be used to describe any kind of day. It is a simple tool that fits any user and that still remains easy and focused.”
To generate revenue, Kamyar says he intends to
