By Melody Coleman
Four BYU students majoring in entrepreneurship have invented a device that not only tracks the number of steps a person walks but how many calories he or she burns in a day.
'We have an ''A'' horse and an ''A'' jockey,' Nathan Pratt, one of the four students, said about the KAM Coach and the newly formed company KAM Accelerator, Inc. 'It motivates people to get and keep moving.'
The KAM Coach is a small device about the size of a silver dollar worn around the waist and tracks how many calories a person burns in a given day. The KAM Coach measures how hard you are working, how many calories are burned, steps taken, percentage of goal achieved and other personal fitness information. A pedometer is one-dimensional, and only tracks how many steps you take, not how hard you work said Jake Tanner, member of KAM Accelerator.
'Some days I think I have been really busy but in reality, physically, I haven''t,' said Stas Getmanenko, member of KAM Accelerator. 'The KAM Coach helps me to know how busy I really was.'
BYU senior Grant James needed a team to help him develop the KAM Coach. He had known of a man in Holland by the name of Eric Damon who had created it and used something similar to the KAM Coach before.
Once picking his team and naming it KAM Accelerator, Inc., James decided to enter the BYU Business Plan Competition. They will compete with semi-finalists Collective Medical Technologies, Core Footwear, Hood Tunes, Inc., My Building Partner, Precision Surveying Solutions, Teton Recreation Cabins and WorldWide Wheelchairs for the most marketable product.
The KAM Coach has proved successful and has become a semi-finalist in three competitions, including BYU. BYU has chosen the KAM Coach to represent them at the San Diego State University Venture Challenge and the University of Utah Entrepreneur Challenge Competition.
'The KAM Coach has proved itself to be a contagious product that people enjoy using,' said Trent Read, one of the five directors of BYU''s Business Plan Competition
In the future KAM Accelerator, Inc. plans to partner with businesses and weight-loss companies to provide key solutions to loose weight, Tanner said.
The final Business Plan Competition event will be March 31, 2006, at 2 p.m. in 140 JSB. To find out more information on the KAM Coach, students can visit KAMCoach.com.
(For comments, e-mail Melody Coleman at melodybrooke271@hotmail.com)