Author: Mihai Avram | Date: 10/11/2020

Since social media became ubiquitous around the early 2000s it often seemed like our world was slowly crashing and burning. From the environmental, to the social, and eventually to the individual. Pollution, deforestation, global warming, misinformation, child trafficking, poverty, racism, sexism, corruption, pandemics, obesity, heart disease, anxiety, depression, and so much more. To make matters worse, over time I have been growing more and more tired of us continuing to uncover, discuss, and learn about these problems without actually taking a step in the direction to solve them. Granted there are initiatives, movements, academic efforts, and technology to fight just about every one of these issues, not to discredit those; however, I simply did not think we are doing enough.

This is why I decided to create a first of a kind impact tracking app that empowers us to make impactful choices in our lives and can incrementally work towards solving some of these problems both to improve ourselves and to make the world a better place.

One action at a time.

Welsome – The Impact Tracking App

In 2019, I began the journey of creating a platform that can achieve this vision, called Welsome. The idea is simple; the user community or moderators create activity content for various categories that the users care about. For instance, one category could be climate change, and there would be dozens of activities that users can partake in so that they can contribute to reducing their carbon footprint and fighting climate change. Examples include recycling plastic, walking or biking instead of driving, eating a plant-based diet, and many others. These activities would include details about the CO2 emissions reduced, water consumption reduced, and other metrics that reflect real-world impact. By the same token, there would be activities that users can engage in, track, and challenge each other in any other categories such as being healthier, mitigating the spread of Covid-19, and much more.

The Vision For Welsome

The uncompromising long-term vision for Welsome is to provide an environment for people to feel empowered to make a difference, both in their lives, and in the lives of others around them, and also to be rewarded for it, internally and externally. The word “Welsome” originates from middle english and is defined as being prosperous and in good condition. I hope that the app can show reverence for this definition and serve as a guiding compass for creating a prosperous people, and a prosperous world.

How Does Welsome Work?

Welsome is a mobile app available for Android and iOS where you can:

• Subscribe to any activity category of your choice (e.g. health or climate change).
• Get daily insights and reminders on actionable ways you can improve yourself and the planet, based on the category you subscribed to.
• Remind yourself of things you can do to achieve your goals (e.g. go to bed earlier 5 times this week, or recycle 20 plastic items this month).
• Create goals for yourself, track your progress, and get rewarded for your accomplishments.
• Connect with and join activity challenges with friends.
• Contribute to community-based collaborative challenges that come with rewards (e.g. a gift card to socially impactful organizations such as Allbirds for completing a community recycling challenge).
• Win rewards from your accomplishments.
• Track your progress and your self-improvement and social-impact journey.

To highlight some of these features, below you may see the Welsome app in action.

Social Impact and Self Improvement Activity Features And Insights

Social Goals, Challenges, and Rewards

Join The Movement And Beta!

If you feel the same way, come and embark on this collective journey to improve ourselves and make the world a better place, one action at a time.

Welsome Website – https://welsome.org

Beta Links

Android Beta Link
https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.welsome.app

iOS Beta Link
https://testflight.apple.com/join/gM9XZX1V

Fierce, but Fragmented Competition

As I continued to build Welsome and surveyed any possible apps, startups, and organizations that are doing similar things I stumbled across some important points. The organizations that are impact-driven focus a lot on corporate social accountability such as the product called Xocial, which empowers organizations and their employees to be more impact driven. Big tech is doubling down on health and fitness where we see Fitbit, Strava, and Apple Health as some leaders in this space. There are also a few organizations that are looking at the impact tracking from a more holistic perspective, such as StickK for achieving goals using social and monetary contracts, and Exist which is one of the most comprehensive life tracking services. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that no other organization is looking to combine activity tracking, general self-improvement as well as social impact in one service and allow people to track and be empowered by the impact that results from their actions. This, I hope to be Welsome’s contribution to the world.

Final Words

That’s all I have for now, I will continue publishing posts and keeping everyone updated on the progress and vision for Welsome. Additionally, if you have any feedback, advice, or want to collaborate, feel free to reach out to me at mihai.v.avram@gmail.com.

Stay healthy and safe, and cheers.
Mihai Avram – Founder of Welsome