As a teenager in the early 2000s, Conor McGinn worked part-time in the nursing home where his grandmother lived. The employees did all they could to make her and other residents comfortable, but McGinn says her quality of life was never as good as it was before. “The staff were lovely, but looking after people is the most resource-intensive thing you can do, and trying to be happy, good-natured and enthusiastic while you’re under that kind of fierce pressure is just incredibly challenging,” he adds.
Later, as an engineering student at Trinity College Dublin, he wondered why technology wasn’t being used to support caregivers. “Everyone else benefits from this stuff. Why can’t senior living?” he thought. Now a mechanical engineer at Trinity, he builds robots to take on some of the tasks normally done by staff in assisted-living and retirement homes.
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