Philips is a world leader in health tech, including medical appliances that help save lives in case of cardiac arrest. Every week 300 people suffer cardiac arrest. 70% of this takes place outside the hospital. Having an AED within 6 minutes’ reach can mean the difference between life and death. Working with the Heart Foundation, data told us that in the Netherlands there aren’t nearly enough AED’s to meet this crucial requirement. So how could we bring this cause to light in a meaningful way and help Philips achieve its mission of making cities heart safer for everyone?

The shirt consists of a number of parts, like a GPS module that locates the runner. With that information we made a calculation to the known locations of the AED devices in Eindhoven. For the nearest AED device we calculated the time it takes from the runner to the device based on the 6 minute zone. The most visual part of the shirt is the LED display that is worn underneath, which consists of 850 individual RGB LEDs. The animations shown on the display are dynamically adjusted in color and information based on the distance to the nearest AED. When being near enough to the device, the shirt would show in green lights the minutes from 1 - 6, above 6 minutes the shirt would turn red and show all minutes above 6 in real time.

The interactive shirts are wearable digital out of home displays, conveying changing messages in real time. They turn green when our runners are in a heart safe neighborhood and red when an AED is not available within 6 minutes. What seemed like magic was a carefully designed use of technology using data processed on the go. Each shirt has a built-in screen made of 850 individually addressable LED’s. The shirt uses GPS to know its own geolocation and a python computer to calculate retrieval times to all known AED locations in the city. The distance to the nearest AED is always displayed on the shirt.

Team Heart Safety generated a lot of publicity: 3.5 million people reached by the campaign with 5% social engagement, double the benchmark. We successfully spread the message and fuelled the conversation around the need for accessible AED’s to make cities everywhere heart safer. So, team Heart Safety runs on, continuing to raise awareness for the crucial 6-minute heart safety zone in more and more cities.