Question: What encouraged you to help the elderly

Conor McGinn answered on 1 Mar 2016:

In engineeirng, there is usually pretty wide awareness about problems that engineers need to make solutions for. For example – its common that people work on renewable energy because oil will eventually run out and its wrecking the environment. Elderly people is one of those things also. We are fast reaching the point where we will have so many elderly people we wont have enough young people to look after them. So technology to help elderly people is a hot topic in engineering.
On a personal level, my nana ended up in a nursing home because she lived by herself and the family were afraid if she fell nobody would be there to raise the alarm. I think if she lived with a robot, a robot that could be programmed to detect if an accident happens and help with some household tasks, then she could have stayed at home for years longer. In fact, I think having a robot will make the elderly person safer than a human carer someday.