By Caleb Radford
An Aussie app to help smokers quit the habit has made it to the final five of the Bridge to MassChallenge startup accelerator in Boston.
The Kick.It app uses a combination of peer-support and extinction therapy to help smokers butt out for good.
Whenever users get the urge to smoke, they log onto the app where they are met with a community of support to encourage them to persevere with their journey to quit.
Users are encouraged to join with their friends and compete with each other to break unwanted habits.
Every time a person begins to feel like smoking, through triggers such as seeing someone smoke or being in certain social situations, it is often met with the reward of a cigarette.
Kick.it uses a range of techniques, including extinction therapy, to replace the habit of picking up a cigarette with logging into the app.
It is aimed at capitalising on the constant use of smartphones to add a higher level of availability to users, with an estimated 150 mobile device sessions per person every day.
Kick.It founder James Stewart is a reformed smoker who managed to quit with the help of his girlfriend.
A New Zealand native, Stewart came up with the idea in 2010 and worked on similar smoke-helpline programs.
He moved to South Australia’s capital Adelaide a year later to further pursue his dream of a smoke-free world by 2040.
Stewart said although many countries had programs to help smokers, people often chose to avoid them.
He said people usually took up the habit because their friends or family smoked and the best way to break it was through a similar process.
“We can tailor programs for different types of smokers so it’s relevant for every user,” he said.
“It can be your peers or your family and includes campaigns like friendly competition where a smoker gives up cigarettes and a friend journeys with them by giving up something as well like candy or chocolate.”
“You can put a lot of evidence based stuff into an app but it probably won’t have an effect on breaking a habit. Our techniques work to replace the cigarette with the phone until it becomes a habit.”
Kick.it was developed with the help of Adelaide-based developer Codefish and also provides a list of research on smoking as well as helpful tips to complement its peer support focus.
These include effective distraction techniques such as deep breathing exercises or drinking water.
It is designed to be a companion app and is not meant to replace existing initiatives.
It is also collaborating with South Australian institutions such as the Basil Hetzel Institute, the Wellbeing and Resilience Centre at SAHMRI and Flinders University to continue to develop the research platform.
According to the World Health Organisation there are more than a billion smokers worldwide.
The WHO also reports that about six million people die from smoking a year, including more than 600,000 people from second-hand smoking.
A recent study by the Medical University of South Carolina found that extinction therapy was an effective treatment technique.
The study demonstrated that when a person was exposed to triggers such as lighters or people smoking but did not engage in the habit, they were able to smoke significantly less cigarettes.
The plan is for Kick.it to eventually expand to include community-help initiatives to address other unwanted habits such as bad diets or lack of exercise.
It is currently in the running for a place in one of MassChallenge’s five world accelerators in the United States, Mexico, Switzerland, Israel or England and the opportunity to share in a US$1 million prize pool.
MassChallenge is a not-for-profit startup accelerator program providing support to the highest-impact and highest-potential startups and entrepreneurs.
To date, 1211 MassChallenge alumni have raised over $1.8 billion in funding, generated over $700 million in revenue, and created over 60,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The Bridge to MassChallenge program is an Australian competition to fast track the top startups to the US accelerator.
Kick.it will present its final pitch to the MassChallenge program in April and plans an official launch of its iOS app later this year.
