An 18-year-old girl made an elderly care robot, which sold out in just two days after its launch.

At 18, she started a business making robots, and it was a huge success!

(Your childhood and mine seem so different)

The elderly care robot named Sam is the entrepreneurial product of 18-year-old girl Audrey Lo and her two peers of the same age.

According to Audrey, two days after the robot was launched, the website crashed due to too many pre-orders. Many nursing homes also wanted to place orders with them, and some even wanted 20 units at once.

Actually, at the very beginning, Sam was designed by Audrey Lo for her grandparents, and now it has become a successful product.

Let's see what it can do.

24/7 Active Monitoring of the Safety of the Elderly

As the first robot focusing on the safety of the elderly, Sam is positioned with 24/7 guardianship as its core. Relying on two core capabilities of fall detection and autonomous movement, it mainly aims to ensure the home safety of the elderly and provide daily companionship.

In terms of functions, it can achieve all-round safety monitoring. It can not only automatically detect the fall of the elderly, but also immediately send an emergency alert including real-time camera footage once an accident occurs, reminding family members to respond in time.

In terms of daily companionship and life assistance, it can accurately remind the elderly to take medicine on time, record to-do items in the calendar, and even deliver customized messages set in advance by family members.

What's more, Sam can also chat with the elderly like a friend.

This is also one of the major highlights of Sam's design. Audrey said that the elderly can use it very conveniently just by speaking, and its somewhat cool appearance can also arouse the elderly's interest in using it.

In addition to providing companionship in family settings, Sam can also be a great help to caregivers in nursing homes and other care institutions.

It can actively complete tasks such as safety inspections of the elderly and emergency situation monitoring, reducing the workload of caregivers.

At the same time, it can also provide entertainment for the elderly in nursing homes through game interactions, intelligent conversations and other means, enriching their daily lives.

Currently, Sam has been applied in more than 50 families. Audrey Lo's team has also received many orders from nursing homes, and some even chased them to place an order for 20 units at once.

Actually, Sam's success is not accidental.

Looking at the data, by 2030, the global elderly population will reach 1.4 billion, but the infrastructure to deal with aging is insufficient. It can be said that millions of families are worried about the safety and companionship of the elderly, and there is a huge market gap waiting to be filled behind this.

18-year-old Audrey Lo also used her young perspective and technology, focusing on the two cores of safety and companionship. Without piling up complex functions, she hit the pain points of many families.

Moreover, many netizens are very optimistic about the work of this young team.

An 18-Year-Old Girl's Three Entrepreneurial Ventures

Actually, this is not Audrey Lo's first time to start a business.

In 2020, at the age of 13, Audrey, out of her love for games, raised $35,000 and ventured into the e-sports field. She founded an e-sports community platform, which successfully attracted 6,000 users.

During this period, she also held 143 events and sponsored 2 teams, one of which advanced to the World Championship.

But in the end, her e-sports company didn't last. So, she returned to "real life" and began to focus on her studies.

In 2023, she decided to return to entrepreneurship. Within 35 days, the number of followers of her newly registered social account reached 1,000.

This time, she founded a company that teaches writing. At the beginning of her entrepreneurship, Audrey only slept 3 to 4 hours a day for several consecutive weeks. To increase business, she made embarrassing sales calls again and again and experienced great setbacks during this period.

But she still didn't give up.

After 90 days, Audrey's writing company reached a monthly income of $30,000, and the business value of the company rose to $104,000.

Later, relying on her entrepreneurial experience, she began to take on the operation work of startups, and at this time she earned an annual income of $600,000.

Success made her happy, but she didn't stop moving forward. She visited her grandma to seek the next step.

In this process, she began to think: Why is the elderly care problem so difficult?

So, with her keen market insight, she found the next plan: to provide AI care for the elderly.

The three-person team founded the AI company Quo Labs, and the development of Sam started from then on.

Audrey Lo is now studying at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. She said that she will create things that make the world a better place bit by bit.

Reference Links

[1]https://x.com/audrLo/status/1964619227333382515

[2]https://www.samtherobot.com

[3]https://audrLo.com

This article is from the WeChat official account "QbitAI", author: Wen Le. Republished by 36Kr with permission.