ALUMNI PROFILES
LEADING TECHNOLOGY Kinduct is a data analytics company that gathers information on health, wellness and movement and converts it into actionable insights for their clients. Using their industryleading software-as-a-service platform, Kinduct works with major league sports organizations like the NFL, NBA and NHL, as well as the Canadian military and others to give them an edge in performance. “Much of the information we gather simply wasn’t available before,” Rimmer says, “and if it was, it was siloed such that you couldn’t put it all together to figure out what data points mattered. We provide the computer power and algorithm development to be able to take big data and find the needles in the haystack.” The insights Kinduct delivers allow teams and coaches to make better decisions about everything from the ideal length of training sessions to the correlation between injuries and number of minutes played.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF SCOTT LANDRY, MLAB
LESSONS FROM ACADIA For Rimmer, Kinduct is the fulfillment of a long-held dream to build and launch a product. It’s a dream Acadia prepared him well for, he says. While studying sports management and playing football, he also took several business courses that laid the foundation for this entrepreneurial venture. One of the most important life lessons he learned at Acadia was the necessity for teamwork to be successful. “The community was the driving motivator for me,” he says. “Acadia is a small school and you learn that if you don’t treat people well, you don’t last very long.” This mentality worked its way into the core of Kinduct’s culture. “You can be the smartest person in the world, but if you don’t fit in with the way we work, the values we hold, then you’re just going to be an individual,” Rimmer says.
WINNING PARTNERSHIPS Along with the values he learned, many of the relationships Rimmer formed in his Acadia years have been integral to Kinduct’s success. The company works with Acadia’s John MacIntyre mLAB (motion Laboratory of Applied Biomechanics), led by kinesiology professor Dr. Scott Landry (’96), an old classmate of Rimmer’s. The mLAB uses state-of-the-art motion capture technology to analyze athletes’ movements and help with injury prevention. Kinduct partners with the lab and with Acadia’s Strength and Conditioning Coach Elliot Richardson (’10) to test and improve its platforms. With nearly 300 varsity athletes under his supervision, Richardson is ideally positioned to test Kinduct’s platforms across a range of sports and give feedback on problems or suggest changes and additions.
The partnership is mutually beneficial, providing Acadia’s varsity teams access to cutting-edge data analysis that transforms the way Richardson tracks performance and advises coaches. The platforms are especially useful for varsity athletes since they frequently have to balance athletics and academics. If students are overwhelmed at a particular time in the term, Kinduct can send an alert to a coach so they can recognize stress or fatigue and adapt their training schedule accordingly.
COLLABORATIVE SPIRIT Kinduct collaborates on several other projects at Acadia, too. Through a grant from Innovacorp, a Nova Scotia start-up investor, kinesiology professor Dr. Jonathon Fowles partners with Kinduct to provide physiology expertise. Computer science professor Dr. Danny Silver (’79), meanwhile, provides input on big data and artificial intelligence to guide Kinduct’s future product development. The collaborative spirit at Acadia and Kinduct makes for a winning partnership, Landry says. “At Acadia, you can pull in people from several different departments and suddenly you have everyone at the table. You have all the pieces, but it’s not territorial. There are no egos involved and there are no egos at Kinduct.” Rimmer agrees. “Naturally, we work well together,” he says. “I’m eternally grateful to Acadia for helping us get where we are.” For more, please visit: https://www.kinduct.com.
Acadia Reminiscence “I remember seeing the most beautiful girl standing in line at McConnell dining hall in my third year. She was wearing a yellow raincoat at the cafeteria – probably waiting to be served the same chicken, pineapple and rice we used to get from Beaver back in the day. Her name then was Stacie Drew – now that we’re married, it’s Stacie Rimmer (’99).”
ACADIA BULLETIN Spring 2017
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