Health Tech: Hester Le Riche On How Tover’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With Dave Philistin

Authenticity attracts like-mindedness. It’s crucial to stay on your social mission. I see it in my team: they go the distance for our clients and our products and they are so intrinsically motivated to improve the care for our groups. Passion enables that work motivation, eye for detail, and fanatic drive to really make the details fit together seamlessly.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hester Le Riche.

Hester Le Riche is the CEO and founder of Tover, the healthcare technology company creating a more caring and inclusive world for people living with cognitive challenges, including dementia. Combining industrial design engineering with clinical psychology during her PhD at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Hester explored and developed how games and “purposeful play” could help people living with dementia. Her discoveries began the journey to her creation of the pioneering cognitive stimulation system the Tovertafel (or “Magic Table’” in Dutch), which uses interactive light animation to stimulate physical and cognitive activity and social interaction.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I was born and raised in Amsterdam with my younger brother, who also became an entrepreneur. My dad was a CEO and mom was a university teacher. We had a lot of security to really chase dreams and follow our ambitions. I’ve learned a lot from my family about entrepreneurship and managing bigger groups of people.

I studied industrial design engineering at Delft University of Technology. I think what has always drawn me to the design trade is the prospect of solving social or health challenges. As I look back at my studies, I’ve actually had quite a clear path to where I am now! After I finished there, I moved to Cape Town — initially to train for my short windsurfing career — and I fell in love with South Africa. We moved to the south where we lived for seven years. I’ve got two sons and two years ago, we moved back to The Netherlands for eight months of the year.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One story I think about is my team and the pandemic. As a company, we focus on inclusivity — from nature, embracing all sorts of people, different groups with different challenges and in different phases of their lives. I’m most proud of how the team not only works for all these groups outside the company, but at the same time embraces all new team members with the feeling of a “warm bath,” which is a Dutch expression for a warm welcome. When COVID happened everyone was working remotely and couldn’t have coffee or drinks or physical meetings with new people who were starting at the company. Still, the team paid a lot of attention to the new people and they were very quickly inducted into our team. I received that “warm bath” feedback quite a bit and it made me feel proud that they were so well acquainted with the company and culture so quickly under those circumstances.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There are many! I’ve always been a bit of a “nerdy designer” by background. So anything that had to do with business — entrepreneuring, people management, the things that actually fill my week today — was completely new to me seven years ago. I already mentioned my brother’s influence but also my best friend, Remco Wilcke [co-founder of Vandebron, a green energy company]. He ran several businesses and was always a bit ahead, giving me a lot of very good discussion and insight. The most important thing he showed me was that you can start a business. During my upbringing and studies, I always had ambition to work at a design agency; I never considered starting a business. As designers, we can not only create products, we can also create companies.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There’s one I found that’s so true, and it gives me so much room and space in life. It’s from Zlatan Ibrahimovic: “Listen. But don’t always follow.”

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I’ll start with the story my mother would tell you: she’d call it determined, I’d call it stubborn. We used to have very cold winters in the Netherlands. It was minus 10 or 15 degrees and all the canals in Amsterdam were beautifully frozen. Everyone was out ice skating and I had just gotten my first pair of skates. I was only a toddler and it was my very first time on the ice. My parents were so cold, they wanted to go home and get warm! I was learning, and I was adamant. I just wasn’t stopping until I got it right. That never changed.

My professor called me “an inquisitive puppy.” I’ve got an open, eager-to-learn energy. When you asked me about one person who’s taught me things, I’ve got so many people I’ve approached for advice and help! That gives me the most energy: there’s people who have a skill, knowledge, or experience that you don’t have, and just by showing interest, they open up and they are willing to spend a lot of time and energy just on informing you and helping you bring your company forward. Doing new things, understanding new concepts, and getting more information, that learning is my fuel.

Thirdly, I am a fanatic. We had this exercise the other day where I had to come up with a one-word strategy for the company. Later I was out running, considering what that word would be for myself. I think the word “fanatic” suits me because it applies not only to work but to sports, to my social life, and being a mom. Keeping life balanced and full is really energizing for me.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

We make serious games, which are playful solutions for challenges that are different for different groups. So that’s always a starting point. But if you look at one overarching concept, that strategy focuses on quality of life. We always look at a person or a group of people with the question, “What are their barriers to having a good quality of life?” For example, the first group we designed for are people living with late-stage dementia, whose biggest challenge is apathy. If they are sitting still most of the day just staring out the window, that has a very big impact on all aspects of how they feel: they physically become stiff, their joints become sore, emotionally there’s a lot of loneliness, boredom, and even depression. Mentally, people advance quicker in their dementia journey if they do nothing at all. So we look at different challenges and try to overcome them. In this case, we create an environment on the table with our product to stimulate physical activity, helping them be more alert, be part of the group, have a laugh, or even just a twinkle in their eye is better than just staring out the window.

How do you think your technology can address this?

As a designer, this was a fascinating project because people with dementia, even early in their disease, lose their ability to take initiative. If you look at products — especially as an interactive designer — the initiative always lies with the user. Your phone isn’t going to do much if you’re not opening it and typing in your password. But what if that interaction between human and product doesn’t stick? We advanced certain design principles during my PhD and also over the years through development of our games. For one that stimulated people, it was quite crucial that we weren’t trying to motivate someone to take initiative, but rather that we were inviting them to react. So if we see that someone is drifting away with their attention or nodding off, we always make sure there’s a new projection very close to them that boasts that response. And by responding, there is movement, and there’s possibly an emotion, a thought, a memory, something to recognize. We’ve proven that the movement can generate these other cognitive responses. During research, the responses from family members who hadn’t recently seen their mother or father or partner have a vibrant day, that motivated us to make sure we could bring this product further than my initial group of participants.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

At the end of my studies, I did a design project for the elderly of the future. It was a visionary project but I did codesign sections about how an aging generation — that of my parents — perceives later-in-life care. I was very intrigued by how they saw life and how they saw themselves as a group of friends growing older. I also read a lot about growing old.

Later, when I was windsurfing training, I met a researcher from the University of Amsterdam who focused on clinical nurse psychology. I had just graduated and was very excited to tell her about the design work we did, the technology that was involved, and the reactions it elicited. She connected me with a like-minded professor, someone who had passion about similar topics. He, particularly, was interested in how physical activity and cognition are related, especially in people with dementia or fragile brains.

There were some challenges: it was very difficult to do good research on physical activity in people with dementia because often they’re not active at all. So how can we measure this? It would be costly and impractical from a staffing perspective. He said, “You’re a designer, come up with something!” Without even thinking, I said “yes.” I was intrigued by this man, his passion and his energy. That’s when we started to look for grounds to come up with a product that would stimulate cognition with physical activity.

How do you think this might change the world?

We hope that we change the way the world cares. There are so many things as a society we’ve excelled at — from flying to the moon to building thousands of electric cars. We’re doing a lot of great stuff, but we are not very good at looking after our most fragile groups of society. I feel we can utilize our technology, technical knowledge, and business knowledge for the betterment of people living with dementia and other disabilities, and children with cognitive challenges. There’s so much we can use for these groups to give them a beautiful day. Many companies focus a lot on medical devices or services, but there’s more potential for advancement in this area we call warm technology, focused on quality of life and well-being. There’s a whole world we can still explore and contribute to, focusing on the human side of aging and this growing group.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I’ve had people ask me, “If a care home buys a Tovertafel, can they hire less people? There’s always this issue with efficiency and quality. This is a world upside down! We have a massive shortage in people in care who can provide stimulation, attention, having a laugh, and that quality of life residents deserve. There is a shortage and that’s why we use technology to fill that gap. I do think there’s a cost reduction — in fact, it’s been proven — but more, we see a positive effect on care staff and on the residents. Staff can experience reduced workloads, higher enjoyment, and less turnover, which saves the care industry significantly.

While it’s exciting to have a flourishing business in the care environment, I am also very excited for other companies to do the same, designing their own warm technologies. There’s still so much room for successful companies to contribute. We even have a consortium in the Netherlands to feed from each other and inspire each other. Unfortunately, there’s also evidence of companies only in it for the money, without motivation of a social aim or passion. This angers me because if you look from a distance, everyone can program a few live projections. But the devil is in the details: experience and knowledge must come into play in the development of these technologies so users don’t pull back or feel insecure with the interactions.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

First, it’s important to really understand what is the pain — and not from your own perspective, but from the people who are experiencing the pain. So my advice is to spend time. Personally, I was very invested. I had the luxury of spending five years designing one project. From our faculty we were trained in codesign methods and context mapping; the concept behind this is that you, as a designer, are a vehicle in the design process. You’re going to almost blend into the environment and the context which you’re designing for and really feel what it is to sit in a care home all day. So I sat with residents. I ran behind care staff for hours and saw how different the experiences of the day were. You actually must feel the pain before you design for it.

Secondly, ask what is needed. I had an eye-opening moment when I arrived at the care home to test and develop the games for my design project. One of the care staff said to me, “You are the first designer that asked us what we need instead of telling us what we need to do.” I took this as a great compliment. As I looked at her, I could totally imagine this. We are engineers and designers and we are problem solvers and we have ideas and we are excited about them! We quite quickly try to force our solutions before we even ask what their problem is. Ask what they need and how their day looks.

Number three — back to my favorite quote — don’t always follow. They’re experts of their work and their daily routines, not designers. What does a day in a care home look like? You really need to try to familiarize yourself with all this knowledge and all these complexities. Most of the time, the “experts” won’t come up with a disruptive innovation. That’s what you as a designer are trained for. Don’t become so humble that you ask them what to do or what you should design for them.

Fourth, authenticity attracts like-mindedness. It’s crucial to stay on your social mission. I see it in my team: they go the distance for our clients and our products and they are so intrinsically motivated to improve the care for our groups. Passion enables that work motivation, eye for detail, and fanatic drive to really make the details fit together seamlessly.

Finally, it’s great to be socially aware, but don’t hate commerce. I want to do good for people living with dementia, and as a company we also need to make money. I feel that if we have a healthy company we can maximize our impact. We need revenue to invest in continuously developing new games and features. I’ve embraced it and also have learned to enjoy it. It excites me to grow as a team and learn more about the financial and commercial aspects of this journey. My social passion is still authentic as I enjoy running and growing this business. It’s also challenging me as my aim is having more funds to grow and reach a bigger group of people that need these types of technologies. These new products can bring new modes of happiness, more connection, and more interactions. Embrace it all, commerce included.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I got this advice when I started: find your opposites. The first person I started to collaborate with was a very commercial, clever, pioneering person. I did everything creative and technical and he did everything marketing and sales. But there’s more elements, most importantly, a certain level of passion. You’re going to get up in the morning and go to bed at night with this company on your shoulders. If you’re not passionate, it’s not going to work. You need creativity if you want to design technology and you need to be tech savvy and have a strong technology background, along with commercial sense. It will only fly if you’ve got that sweet spot in the middle. If you’re missing one of those, don’t try to compensate or you’ll lose energy and won’t go as fast. Find the people that can bring in the things that you’re missing.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Unfortunately, since he passed away, we can’t have breakfast: Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. He was so fanatic about the elements of his company’s culture — how he described it and lived it, it really came from him. I really related to him and he also has really inspired me to bring it to the next level. There’s a lot we can learn from him and his amazing book Delivering Happiness.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Check out https://www.tover.care. You can follow us on YouTube @Tover, Facebook @ToverCareUS, and #Instagram and Twitter at ToverCareUS!

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.