Humans Of New York Helps Egyptian Achieve His Dream

Egyptian born Moawia Eldeeb has had plenty of struggles to overcome in his life. However his life seems to have completely turned around thanks in large part to the Humans of New York.

In 2003, Humans of New York stumbled upon Egyptian native Eldeeb with a story to tell.

This post went instantly viral, with many empathising with Eldeeb and offering to help him adjust to his new life at Columbia University, where Eldeeb would ultimately meet Joshua Augustin, who would be a big part of changing Eldeeb's fate in life. Making ends meet working as personal trainer, Eldeeb credits his gym training for developing his fighting spirit, and dreamed of making personal training more accessible, believing in its transformative powers. Helping him achieve this dream is computer programmer Joshua Augustin. Using his computer vision talents and combining Eldeeb’s knowledge of personal training, the two created a revolutionary new gym aid called Smartspot.

Using a kinect camera, a large flatscreen TV, and Augustin’s programming skills, SmartSpot records your work out, pointing out when posture is misaligned or your angles are off in order to maximise your workout. SmartSpot also has timers that track and control how long you rest between reps, while keeping a video log to review your progress.

This promising new technology is practically useful since scheduling a personal trainer can often be difficult or expensive; trainers have to charge high hourly rates during peak times to compensate the lack of work during the middle of the day. With SmartSpot you can simply use the video log to get advice from personal trainers during off-hours for a fraction of the price.

As it stands the equipment is being sold to gyms for $2,500, and seems to be taking off. Poised to be a success, the SmartSpot has just been featured on the popular techcrunch.com which goes into great detail about Eldeeb's courageous story and how it ultimately led to this revolutionary practical gym tool.