Since nothing announces a new tech venture like a celebrity endorser, the minds behind new health and wellness app Higi have recruited Chicago-bred Lupe Fiasco to help raise its profile. Fiasco, a Grammy-winning artist known for being outspoken and for his conscious, progressive music, is also an investor in the venture, which works like Klout and produces a score based on blood pressure and weight combined with other factors such as physical activity.
Financially backed by Wrapports founder Michael Ferro, Higi assigns points based on metrics that incorporate social interaction. The score can range from 1-999 and, as Fiasco explains, gives a full picture of a person's state of being.
"When I first checked in I was 160 (pounds) and my score was something like 760. I checked in today, and I was 155, but even though I lost 5 pounds I wasn't active in my social activity enough and my blood pressure was a little high," Fiasco told Billboard. "It shows you how weight and wellness aren't the same thing. You can be super fit and super depressed because you're not interacting with your social network. You could work out and work out, but that doesn't really translate to how happy you are in life. You could be at home super happy, super comfortable, just logging in to your computer all day, but your body is paying for it."
Higi is available as both an Apple iOS app and at a kiosk at pharmacies inside Shop Rite and Kmart, with more locations rolling out throughout the rest of the year. The company plans to have around 10,000 kiosks at pharmacies worldwide, hoping the service gains traction as "an updated alternative to popular blood-pressure machines," Billboard reports.
Fiasco demonstrated a photo tagging feature that lets users upload images of their meals or their social activity. The app estimates calorie content of the activity pictured and gives input on how to work it off. "You could take a picture of this fried chicken, and if it was 60 calories you could take a couple walks around the block, or do 20 minutes of jumping jacks," Fiasco said.
It appears that naming music talent to creative director positions is becoming a marketing trend. Alicia Keys' appointment to that role with BlackBerry has received a lot of attention, but other brands, including Monster, which nabbed Keys' husband Swizz Beats in a similar role, have also done the same. While the extent of Fiasco's investment in Higi is unknown, it appears he is prepared to put in the regular hours.
"This is like my normal job," he said. "I'm still doing the rapper thing, but I got a legit 9 to 5 now."
