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AI and robotics are transforming healthcare. But How?

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AI and robotics are revolutionizing the healthcare industry, bringing about transformative changes that enhance patient care, streamline operations, and empower healthcare professionals.

From diagnosing diseases to assisting in surgeries and managing patient data, these technologies are playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare.

healthcare
Image Source: einfochips.com

One of the significant contributions of AI and robotics in healthcare is in the field of diagnostics. AI algorithms can analyze large volumes of medical data, including patient records, lab results, and imaging scans, to assist in the detection and diagnosis of diseases.

These algorithms can quickly identify patterns and anomalies that may be missed by human observers, leading to earlier and more accurate diagnoses. This not only improves patient outcomes but also helps in optimizing treatment plans and reducing healthcare costs.

Also Read: Why is Congress limiting the use of Chatgpt in the offices?

Robotic technology is also revolutionizing surgical procedures. Robotic surgical systems allow for minimally invasive surgeries with enhanced precision and control. Surgeons can perform complex procedures with smaller incisions, reducing post-operative pain, scarring, and recovery time for patients.

The robotic arms can provide greater dexterity and range of motion than human hands, enabling intricate procedures in hard-to-reach areas. Surgeons can also benefit from augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, which provide real-time guidance and 3D visualization, further enhancing their accuracy and efficiency.

In addition to diagnostics and surgery, AI and robotics are transforming patient care and monitoring. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide immediate and personalized responses to patients’ queries, offering support and guidance.

Robots are also being utilized in patient care settings, particularly in elderly care and rehabilitation. Social robots can engage with patients, offering companionship and support. They can remind patients to take medication, encourage physical activity, and monitor vital signs. This not only improves the well-being of patients but also reduces the workload on healthcare providers.

Another crucial area where AI and robotics are making a difference is in managing and analyzing large volumes of healthcare data. AI algorithms can mine electronic health records, clinical trial data, and medical literature to identify trends, patterns, and potential correlations. This wealth of information can help researchers and clinicians make evidence-based decisions, identify risk factors, develop personalized treatment plans, and discover new therapies.

Furthermore, AI-powered predictive analytics can help healthcare systems anticipate disease outbreaks, allocate resources efficiently, and optimize preventive strategies. By analyzing historical data and real-time information, AI algorithms can identify populations at risk and predict disease progression, enabling proactive interventions and saving lives.

In conclusion, AI and robotics are transforming healthcare by enhancing diagnostics, revolutionizing surgery, improving patient care and monitoring, optimizing data analysis, and enabling predictive analytics. These technologies hold tremendous potential to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency, and reduce healthcare costs.

As they continue to advance, it is essential to strike a balance between technology and the human touch, ensuring that AI and robotics augment healthcare professionals rather than replace them, and ultimately, provide better care for patients.

Blue Prism

Blue Prism, The Founder Of Robotic Process Automation.

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Blue Prism is a company that developed and produces workplace robotic process automation (RPA) software, which offers a virtual workforce for automating complex, end-to-end operational tasks. This RPA tool has the ability to create a software-powered virtual workforce. The company enables businesses to automate business processes flexibly and economically.

About The Company

Founded in 2001, Blue Prism is headquartered in Warrington, UK. It also has regional offices in Australia and USA. The company is famous for developing the robotic process automation market. It is a listed company on the London Stock Exchange.

Blue Prism operates on the technology of Microsoft .NET Framework. It supports all platforms like Windows, WPF, mainframe, web, Java, etc., and automates any application when presented in several ways.

Blue Prism
Image source: venturebeat.com

History

A team of process automation specialists established Blue Prism in 2001 with the goal of creating technology that would increase organisations’ productivity and effectiveness. At first, they concentrated on the back office, where they discovered a huge unmet need for automation. Alastair Bathgate and David Moss co-founded the business to offer a novel strategy now referred to as RPA. Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of technology to give businesses a digital workforce that adheres to rule-based business processes and communicates with their systems in a manner similar to that of their current users. Blue Prism coined the expression “Robotic Process Automation”. Automate, the company’s first commercially available product was introduced in 2003. The second iteration of Automate, which included functionality for massive processing, was launched in 2005. Blue Prism software was first used by Co-operative Financial Services in 2005 to automate manual customer care operations.

In 2016, the company launched its initial public offering (IPO) when it debuted on the London Stock Exchange with a market valuation of £48.5 million. Under CEO Alastair Bathgate, the company’s shares increased 44% on the initial day of the listing. The company’s clients include Fidelity Investment Management, O2, and Co-operative Bank. By 2016, it also established offices in Miami and Chicago in addition to the UK.

Acquisition

In 2021, the purchase of Blue Prism by Vista Equity Partners for $1.5 billion was announced. Vista wanted to combine TIBCO Software and Blue Prism. According to reports, Vista was thinking of cutting 8 to 10% of the combined companies’ around 4,750 employees from their payroll. The initial acquisition agreement was initially disclosed in December 2021, when SS&C and Vista engaged in a bidding war that increased the price. Shareholders of Blue Prism finally chose to support SS&C. In 2022, SS&C Technologies stated that it had successfully acquired Blue Prism for about $1.6 billion.

Founders – David Moss, Alastair Bathgate

Alastair Bathgate and David Moss co-founded the Blue Prism Group in 2001. Alastair served as the company’s CEO from that time until 2020. The then-unmet requirement for organisational process automation led to the creation of Blue Prism. The company expanded from serving a single client, the UK bank Barclays, to becoming a global powerhouse with 2,000 clients spread over 120 countries and 70 different industrial sectors, including healthcare, financial services, and the public sector.

CEO – Jason Kingdon

Jason Kingdon is the CEO and Chairman of Blue Prism. He joined the company in 2008 as the Executive Chairman. He has co-founded numerous AI startups. He was a co-founder of the Intelligent Systems Lab at UCL, where he pioneered the usage of a neural network in real-time financial forecasting. He has also served as CEO and co-founder of Searchspace, a business that used artificial intelligence to detect insider trading at banking institutions and stock exchanges and money laundering. Kingdon earned a pure mathematics undergraduate degree from the Queen Mary University of London and a master’s degree from the University of Bristol.

Nuro

Nuro- Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson’s business venture to make human life better using robotics

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California based Robotics firm Nuro shows the positive side of technology to the world. In fact, this firm made common people use robots in their daily life. The firm is based on the belief that technology is for everyone and it should benefit everyone. As well, Nuro is working to make human life better by using each and every part of robotics. Two young entrepreneurs Dave and J. Zhu set the firm in 2016 with this vision.

Both of them are experts in Machine learning and Robotics and working in this field since the beginning of their careers. In order to harness the power of robotics and to integrate it with AI, Nuro works on an international level. However, the firm also fighting for black Americans right to equality and actively achieving its corporate social responsibility.

About Nuro

Nuro is well recognized for its self-driving vehicles used for local goods transportation. The firm developed these vehicles considering all the needs and different aspects of the user. Such that it can be affordable, safer, and advance in functionality. As well, it comes with a fully automatic mode.

Also, several other products of the firm designed with keeping in mind that it should easier the human’s daily life. Behind such a great idea, of course, the founders are important. However, they have a team of experts from research as well as industrial background. Nuro’s team is the winner of competition like DARPA Robotics Challenge, ImageNet, etc.

Founders in Limelight

The masterminds behind Nuro dedicated their career and invest the time in the development of Nuro. Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson both are young entrepreneurs who proved the ability of the young generation in the robotics field. They are truly an example for many newbies who dream to achieve such success in an early career.

Jiajun Zhu- Co-founder and CEO

He successfully established the Nuro along with partner Dave. As well, he guides to decide the policies and strategies for exploring the service. Nuro has raised a total of 92 million dollars from Greylock Partners as well as Gaorong Capital. Earlier, he played an important role as a software engineer in the self-driving car project of Google.

Zhu contributed his time to solving the high level and challenging problems at the forefront of machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and reliability. From the time he entered in this field, he is curious to know every aspect of Robotics. Jiahun decided to do something to easier the daily life of Humans using his experience and set up Nuro.

Dave Ferguson

He has a great contribution to enable robotics for everyday life. In 2016, Dave and his partner’s idea turned out great. Yet, simplified our lives with the use of robotics and technology. Like Jiajun, he also associated with the self-driving car project of IT Giant firm Google. Dave assists to solve the challenging and exciting problems at the forefront of machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and reliability.

As well, he was the senior research scientist at Intel Research. His main area of research was robotics and machine learning which leads to the foundation of Nuro. Since then he decided to do more advancement in this field. However, this dream of Ferguson got the direction when he met Zhu.

Education

He attended the University of Otago to study BSC computers in mathematics.  As well, Dave went to Carnegie Mellon University for a Ph.D. in robotics and computer science.

What else Nuro Do?

As said earlier, Nuro is working for the betterment of human life through technology and innovation. Apart from that, the firm is also seriously involved in the betterment of society. How so? Nuro doing this by supporting the cause that deals with providing equality to black Americans. All over the world this issue is big and to help in overcome this, Nuro arranging some donations.

In order to fight for Black Americans’ equality rights, Nuro collected over 500 dollars/team members. It aims to raise more funds.

Bottom line

The firm established in 2016, worked impeccably and achieving its vision with immense efforts. Recently in 2019, the firm raised 940 Million dollars. As well, it is working to expand its business in new areas. Nuro is also taking one step further to grow its team and building the network. So that it’s a vision to make human life better using robotics can be achieved.

IRobot

Irobot: American Advanced Technology Company Founded By Three of Mit’s Ai Lab Members

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iRobot is an American advanced technology company. Three of MIT’s AI lab members set up the company in 1990. It has been working in robot design for space exploration as well as military defense. Also, the company creates a wide range of consumer robots that can perform both outside and inside works of home. For example, its robots Roomba and Braava. These are robots as a vacuum cleaner and floor moppers respectively. 

After serving at MIT’s AI lab, H. Greiner, R. Brooks, and C. Angle set up the company in 1990. 

iRobot 

It is an American advanced tech company that works in the field of Robotics. However, the company started the development of PackBot in 1998. Just after receiving the DARPA research contract. In 2002, iRobot started designing home robots. As of the year 2004, its home robot the Roomba sold a million units. Also, in 2005, the company began being traded on the NASDAQ. Until the year 2012, the company sold 8+ million home robots. Additionally, it has deployed more than 5000 defense & security robots. 

Best Home Robots

iRobot designing home robots since 2002. Roomba, Braava, Create, Mirra, and Terra are well-known and mostly sold robots of the company. The robots Roomba and Brava operate as an automated vacuum cleaning robot and floor mopping robot respectively. However, the company’s robot Create is designed as a hobby robot. Mirra is designed to clean swimming pool floors, while Terra is designed for mowing the lawn using mapping.

Founders of iRobots

Colin M. Angle

He is the CEO and iRobots co-founder. Under Colin’s policies, the company is at the leading robot enterprise. Also, he showed the world an example of team empowerment and innovation to deliver market-friendly robots. In addition, under his guidance, the company has built a strategic network with many companies like Boeing, Clorox, etc. Together, these companies are delivering new and innovative robot solutions.

Education 

Colin Angle is an honorable student at MIT. He holds a tech bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering as well as a master’s degree in computer science. During his master’s, Angle’s thesis assisted to produce a six-legged autonomous walking robot called Genghis. Presently, it is at Smithsonian National Air and Science Museum, Washington D.C. 

Career

In 1990, he was Artificial Creatures’ president. Also, he worked at the AI Laboratory of MIT. At that time, he first met Helen Greiner and Dr. Rodney Brooks. Later, they turned as partners in the foundation of iRobot. Earlier, just after the formation of iRobot, Colin and his team worked for NASA. For NASA, they designed behavior-controlled rovers. In fact, the team won the NASA Group Achievement award. As well, the Angles name is inscribed on the spirit case of the Mars exploration rover. 

Awards and Recognition 

Colin M. Angle has been honored with numerous professional awards. Also, the Mass Technology Leadership Council honored him as CEO of the year. He marked the name in the list of Best Bosses, the list declared by Fortune Small Business Magazine. Besides, Ernst and young honored him New England Entrepreneur of the year. 

Helen Greiner

She is iRobot co-founder and teammate of Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle at MIT AI Lab. Also, she served as CTO of Aria Insights. 

Early life 

She was born in 1967 in London. At the age of five, Helen’s family shifted to Southampton, New York, USA. Helen decided to work with robots when she was ten-year-old. It was the Star-War movie that inspired her.

Education

Helen is a Mechanical engineer studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, she earned a Master’s in computer science. Apart from that, Greiner holds an honorary degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clarkson University. 

Achievement

At iRobot she assisted in designing the first-ever version of iRobot called Roomba. However, she served as chairman of the company until 2008. Also, she served as an iRobot president until 2004. Under her guidance, the company released a PackBot, Roomba and military robot called SUGV.

Other Achievements 

Helen served the United States Army as an advisor in Logistic and Technology. Also, she affirmed as highly qualified Expert for Robotics, Autonomous Systems & AI for the Army.

Awards and recognition

In 2000, the World Economic Forum honored her as one of the Global leaders. Also, she named Ernst and Young New England Entrepreneur of the year. Helen also set the name in Fortune Magazine list of “Top Ten Innovators”. She also awarded as Entrepreneur of the Year by Good Housekeeping. Furthermore, she honored as one of America’s best leaders by Kennedy School at Harvard. Apart from that, she had been honored with many such awards and titles. Recently, in 2018, Wentworth Institute of Technology awarded her as “Women of the Year”.

Rodney Brooks

He is an Entrepreneur and co-founder of robotics companies iRobot and Rethinks Robotics. Presently, he is the Rethink Robotics CTO and Chairman. Brooks also served at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. 

Education

He studied at Flinders University in Pure Maths. Also, he has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford. At Carnegie Mellon and MIT, he held research positions. Brooks has published many papers in computer vision as well as in artificial intelligence and robotics.

He also served as a member of the International Scientific Advisory Group of National Information & Communication Technology, Australia. Presently, Rodney is serving at Xconomy.

Awards and Recognition

In 1991, Brookes won the Computers and Thought Award at the Int Joint Conf on Artificial Intelligence. Apart from that, he worked as the Cray Lecturer at the University of Minnesota. Also, the Mellon Lecturer at Dartmouth as well as Forsythe Lecturer at Stanford. Brookes works actively in Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, he appeared in the movie called “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control” in 1997. That movie was named for one of Brookes’s scientific papers.

Reach Robotics

Silas Adekunle : The Founder of AR Robot Maker ‘Reach Robotics’

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It is quite obvious to think that the world’s first gaming robot has been developed by a teen from the U.S., maybe from Japan, or even China, but in our imagination, Africa, and then Nigeria is way behind in this contrast. But would you believe if we tell you that this very robot does exist, and the inventor of the same does not belong to any of the developed nations, but Nigeria? Yes, a young lad, Silas Adekunle, of Nigerian descent is the developer of the world’s first gaming robot.

Early Life

Silas Adekunle was born in Lagos, Nigeria where he spent initial ten years of his life. He was always curious about technology, but due to lack of resources, could not get access to it. But when he turned ten, his parents moved to the UK, and he got the chance to know more about it. He had the desire to learn but had to pace up his learning process due to cultural shock. But soon, he was able to get among one of the bright students in his school.

After completing his school education, he joined the University of the West of England, Bristol to complete a bachelor’s degree in robotics and opted for C++. But it was before joining the university, that he had already started learning to code and do experiments with robots through YouTube and other online tutorials. Because of his knowledge about robotics, he became the team leader of the Robotics in Schools programme of the university. This programme targetted the students with a promising performance in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This was the turning point of Adekunle’s life, as he got to learn more about the subject he loved.

Finding the Passion

Silas Adekunle
Image Source: owler.com

Besides going to college, he opted for a part-time teaching job, where eventually, he started teaching the kids about robotics using his robotic kits, he was using. But soon, he realised that the kids used to lose their interest in robots as soon as they know completely about it.

While teaching the kids, he conceived the idea of Reaching Robotics, a program to teach kids robotics, built in a more innovative way. The concept was to build robots with gamification. He pitched the idea in front of the university and Princes’ Trust. Adekunle always knew he wanted a career in robotics and had made some entrepreneurial plans as well. As he was always in love with motion, he decided to build a consumer product based on it.

Founding Reach Robotics

Inspired by the already existing pet robots, Adekunle started working on a robot that would also express emotions and be a character from a game. In 2013, he met Christopher Beck, who was studying for his PhD in computer science, and John Rees, a robotics expert and engineering consultant. Both joined Adekunle for the development of the robot. Next thing they did was founding Reach Robots.

It took the three of them to create their and the world’s first gaming robot named Mekamon total two years. Mekamon is a gaming robot using which a player can play the game through its Android or iOS phone. The robot has got sensors to sense the obstacles and can easily identify things around it. The robot is a combination of gaming mechanics and augmented reality.

Receiving the Funding and New Partnerships

Silas Adekunle pitched his idea of gamified robots in front of a few capitalists and was able to raise $10M in total, including pre-seed and seed funding. Later, he also launched an educational branch of the firm with the name Reach Edu. The company also launched an app that teaches the children robotics and coding. The Reach Robotics product Mekamon was influencing enough that it also got Apple onboard to sign an agreement with the company in 2017. According to the agreement, Apple is the official retailer of the robot and sells the product in both the US and the UK markets.

Today, Reach Robotics is one of the leading robot makers that make use of AI and AR for the development of their robots. For his development works, Adekunle has been awarded a few famous awards. He was named to the Financial Times’ list of the ‘Top 100 minority ethnic leaders in technology in November 2018. He was also in the list of Forbe’s 30 Under 30 list. UWE Bristol also awarded him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology to recognise his contribution to the student entrepreneurship and technology development.

Anki, the Robotics and AI Company, is Shutting Down

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The producers of cute little robots that were credited to teach the children how to code, Anki, has announced that it is going to cease all its operations by 1st May, as a result of lack of finances to fund its future products.

Anki is a decade old company, which is famous for its robots Vector and Cozmo, Vector being the latest product the company had launched last fall. With the popularity of Anki’s robots, getting convinced about the news of Anki’s shut down is quite unbelievable, but according to the reports the company had already informed its employees, about the same, a few days ago.

anki shuts down
Image Source: digitaltrends.com

Noticeably, the company had raised over $200 millions from its investors, and its revenues had approached $100 million in 2017. In fact, Vector had received $2 million in funding through a Kickstarter campaign, last fall, and also, the Anki products had received the Alexa integration just recently. Despite all those highs, the company has to see the lows now.

During the shutdown, the company will be laying off 200 of its employees, providing them with a week’s salary as the compensation. The CEO of the company, Boris Sofman, broke the news to the employees on Monday and confirmed that the company has failed to raise the money for the company after a new round of financing fell through.

“It is with a heavy heart to announce that Anki will be letting go of our employees, effective Wednesday. We’ve shipped millions of units of product and left customers happy all over the world while building some of the most incredible technologies pointed toward a future with diverse AI and robotics driven applications. But without significant funding to support a hardware and software business and bridge to our long-term product roadmap, it is simply not feasible at this time. Despite our past successes, we pursued every financial avenue to fund our future product development and expand on our platforms. A significant financial deal at a late stage fell through with a strategic investor, and we were not able to reach an agreement. We’re doing our best to take care of every single employee and their families, and our management team continues to explore all options available.” the company said in a statement.

Even though the company had seen success as a robotics company, and the time it had launched its first product, it was a big deal to have an Anki robot, after ten years the company is seen as a toy company, which might be a reason for the company being not able to raise the required funds.

Contradicting to that Sofman said, “For us, it was never meant to be a toy company or even an entertainment company. It’s a robotics and AI company.”

Though companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Comcast had come in front with the intentions to acquire Anki, the company will still have to shut down this Wednesday.