Toronto-based Carrot Rewards has been announced as the global winner of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2019 Edge of Government Award, for its AI-driven wellness app that uses a reward system to promote health and wellbeing for its users across Canada. Carrot beat out more than 500 other submissions from around the world.
The prestigious honour was presented to the Canadian startup today at the World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE, where more than 4,000 delegates from over 150 member countries gather each year to “explore new trends, technologies and innovative solutions for the benefit of their citizens,” a release says.
The award-winning Carrot Rewards app launched back in 2017 and was created in collaboration with Canadian government agencies, health NGOs and the private sector. Once downloaded, the free app uses “behavioural economics (nudge theory) to promote and reward responsible lifestyle choices.” In other words, by interacting with the app to do things like track steps, complete quizzes and consume a range of wellness content, users can earn points from popular Canadian loyalty program partners, such as Aeroplan, Cineplex’s Scene, Petro-Points, More Rewards, Drop points and RBC Rewards.
And it’s working. According to the writeup on Carrot Rewards on the World Government Summit website, after partnering with Carrot, the Public Health Agency of Canada embraced the concept of nudging and managed to “increase the knowledge of the risks associated with inactivity by 29 per cent and increase physical activity by 34 per cent.” Furthermore, the write-up states that by reducing the number of “inactive” Canadians by just one per cent, there would be an annual healthcare savings of $2.1 billion. That’s some successful nudging.
The Carrot Rewards app has been downloaded more than 1Â million times, and the company recently announced that it has partnered with the British government to launch the app’s services in the UK in the spring.
“Our entire extended team of employees, government partners and stakeholders across Canada and the UK is beaming with pride today,” said Andreas Souvaliotis, founder and CEO of Carrot Rewards. “Our goal has always been to touch and improve as many lives as possible, and this type of global recognition by the OECD is the best fuel to accelerate our growth across the world.”
