Weekly health and fitness agenda: World Health Day

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April events highlight innovation in fitness and health worldwide. This week begins with community efforts with the celebration of World Health Day while Kiwanis International, the world's volunteer community, wants to know your thoughts on their three Worldwide Service Project finalists. Plus later this month is Med-e-tel, GH/Innovate and FIBO 2010.

Voting open for Pepsi's Refresh Project Awards
April 1 -31
Online

Pepsi's Refresh Project is a new campaign based on social-cause marketing, the program is simple and user-friendly, basically if you have an idea on how to better your community's health, share it and get people to vote. RefreshEverything.com opens for its third round of submitting and voting for winning community health ideas. Each month 32 grants are distributed, totaling 1.3 million dollars (715,000 Euros). To learn more http://www.refresheverything.com/

World Health Day
April 7
Worldwide

This year’s World Health Day theme is "1000 cities, 1000 lives" and will highlight urbanization and health. The campaign will run April 7-11 and the World Health Organization (WHO) has set the following goals: 1000 cities will "open up public spaces to health" and 1000 lives is about gathering 1000 stories about "urban health champions," individuals that have made a significant impact on health in their cities.
http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2010/en/index.html

Vote for the Worldwide Service Project
by mid-April
Online

Kiwanis International, the world's volunteer community with a network of 600,000 adults and youth, has selected their three finalists for the Worldwide Service Project (Malaria No More, UNICEF's Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) and Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases) and your vote may make a difference in the health of millions. Join the online forums that are currently taking place in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese. The Kiwanis International Board will announce the winner at the Kiwanis International Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada in June. http://www.kiwanis.org/wsp

Med-e-Tel
April 14-16
Luxexpo Exhibition and Conference Center, Luxembourg

Med-e-Tel is in its eighth edition hosted by the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) and this year's program will highlight innovation and efficient use of global eHealth, telemedicine and health ICT (information and communication technologies) by focusing on future trends and solutions in mHealth and new models of care. Scheduled are 150 expert presentations representing over 50 nations to share insights into how to effectively and efficiently use technologies to improve quality of health and medical care with a diverse group of industry participants ranging from health professionals, IT architects, venture capitalists and government. A three-day pass is €390 and various discounts apply for members of ISfTeH (International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth); EHTEL (European Health Telematics Association) and iACToR (International Association of CyberPsychology, Training and Rehabilitation). http://www.medetel.eu/

GH/Innovate 2010
April 17-18
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

The 7th annual Global Health & Innovation Conference hosted by Unite for Sight, a nonprofit organization devoted to ending preventable blindness, will bring together social innovators and leading global public health promoters and professionals including bloggers, policymakers, educators, CEOs, philanthropists and scientists from over 56 nations including keynotes from Jeffrey D. Sachs, renowned development economist and Seth Godin, blogger and activist. This year's agenda includes five-minute social enterprise pitches with Q&A and feedback to encourage social innovators and entrepreneurs to actualize their ideas and collaborate or work on finding funding from other participants. Attendee rate before March 31 is $175 (€127) and $130 (€95) for students.
http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference

FIBO 2010
Essen, Germany
April 22-25

FIBO celebrates its 25th anniversary as Europe's key health, fitness and wellness trade event. Essen will welcome over 30,000 health industry professionals and an additional 20,000 individuals interested in overall health from 60 countries including health specialists (physiotherapists, orthopedists, cardiologists, internists) for the FIBOmed section. This expo brings together the latest in training equipment, intelligent health promotion concepts, nutrition, fashion, cutting-edge sessions and events catered to a variety of fitness and health trends, including pole fitness, Zumba, cycling, powerlifting plus a wellness marketplace with innovative new products. Advance online day tickets are €13, to purchase tickets and learn more about FIBO and the FIBOmed section visit: http://www.fibo.de

World Healing Day
April 24, 10 am
Worldwide

World Healing Day is celebrated with a series of local 24-hour events beginning at 10am on April 24. It began as an outgrowth of the Princeton University research that found collective "human consciousness could affect computers physically around the world." World Healing Day recognizes various religious and spiritual practices with celebrations addressing world healing including World Prayer Day, World Yoga Day, World T'ai Chi Qiong Day and World Meditation Day. http://www.worldhealingday.org/World_Healing_Day/World_Healing_Day.html
http://www.worldtaichiday.org

World Malaria Day
April 25
Worldwide

World Malaria Day (WMD) 2010 is a day to recognize one of the greatest global public health challenges that kills a child every 30 seconds and is treatable and preventable. This year is especially important because it is the 2010 targets countdown or "Counting Malaria Out" campaign. By the end of 2010 the UN has called for universal coverage to all people at risk of malaria to achieve the 2015 goal of near-zero deaths. On the days leading up to WMD, start tweeting and get involved with events in your area. http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/worldmalariaday