The Future of Social Robotics to Assist the Ageing Population

Tess den Uyl

Workshop Coordinator

Tess den Uyl, PhD is a research consultant at VicarVision, a software company specialised in emotion recognition. Her interest and expertise are in topics related to implicit measurements, emotions, and innovative technologies. She is project manager of projects such as EyeReader (webcam based eye-tracking), and the AAL social robot project AI2BeWell. She has a background in cognitive neuroscience and is also a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Roberta Bevilacqua

Speaker

Dr. Roberta Bevilacqua is a psychologist and psychotherapist, specialized in Clinical Psychology at the Bologna University. Her research interests are: technology acceptance, AI, social and rehabilitation robotics, usability, coaching, user-centred and participatory design, health and eHealth literacy. She is Principal Investigator of projects such as E-VITA “European-Japanese Virtual Coach for Smart Ageing”, and GUARDIAN (AAL-2020) “The social robot companion to support homecare nurses”.

Andrei Marin

Speaker

Andrei Marin is the executive Director at IRIS Robotics, he is a PhD student at Faculty of Automatic Control & Computer Engineering which is part of Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iasi. Passioned about robots since high school, when he participated at different international robotics competitions, decided to start in 2017 IRIS Robotics by creating the first Romanian humanoid robot. Currently, his effort and research are directed to the creation of complex functions and applications for humanoid robots based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Social robots are a promising and appealing technological development to help older people stay healthy at home longer. There are many variations that could have a benefit, but there is no widespread acceptance and application yet. This workshop will combine experience from several AAL projects and address the following question: how to prepare for an aging society? By looking into social robotics from a multidimensional perspective. We will go into the current status regarding user acceptance of social robots, what the mental health benefits can be and what the current state-of-the-art hardware developments are.