MABU

Hi I’m Mabu, your personal healthcare companion

The name Mabu is short for mabutaki, a Japanese word meaning to blink and mabudachi, or best friend. 

1) Why is the social aspect of technology important?

As technology becomes the the peak of society, many people are becoming less and less social we need to implement more social aspects to technology. Since we are not able to limit the rise of technology, social aspects must be within modern technology.

2) Describe the function and purpose of your robot. How is it trying to address a social problem?

Mabu is a personal healthcare companion robot who is designed to have conversations with patients, especially with chronic diseases, especially with managing medication. This is address the social problem of not have someone there to help you through the challenges of fighting these diseases, acting like a real human, the conversations are developed overtime according to responses and other data collected.

3) What is the cutting edge technology behind it?

The structure of these conversations are based on proven behavioral models of psychology to promote behavior change. Mabu has conversations with patients every day to manage their treatment and gather data about their progress. The Catalia Health platform is built on a HIPAA-compliant cloud-based back end system that allows them to provide patients with real-time data about each patient’s progress and challenges.

4) What technology do we rely on during Covid 19 pandemic?

Among everyday citizens we rely on the technology of laptops and phones daily during the COVIS 19 pandemic. From students to workers many of us are working from home using computers to do work and communicate with others. Other technology has been used in the healthcare department of this pandemic to track statistics and take care of patients.

5) Has technology connected us better socially or worse or a bit of both?

Technology has its pros and cons, however without the use of technology it would be extremely difficult to survive this pandemic and do simple tasks such as buying necessities and communicating with loved ones. Without technology right now we would have all stopped learning and be incredibly depressed staying at home.