How Technology Can Help Keep Seniors Engaged And Active
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dor Skuler, the CEO and Co-Founder of Intuition Robotics. Dor’s company and his product, ElliQ, have been distinguished by several organizations including Fast Company’s Most Innovative Design Awards, AARP’s Innovation Champion Awards, CES’ 2018 Best of Innovation Awards for Smart Home, and SXSW’s Interactive Innovation Awards. Dor was also selected to Global Telecom Business’ “40 under 40” list in 2009, 2011 and 2013.
How did you get started in the world of senior care?
I started in the Intelligence Corps in the Israel Defense Force Unit 8200 before creating my first company, Zing Interactive Media, a venture-backed startup company in the field of mobile interactive media and NLP. Afterward, I served as Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Safend, an endpoint security company. Then, I moved on to Bell Labs in Alcatel-Lucent where I built and ran businesses and was General Manager of Mobile Security in the company’s Enterprise Business Division. I then moved to a corporate role as VP Strategy and Corporate Development and founded a large scale internal startup as SVP, General Manager of CloudBand Business Unit, credited for one of the key factors for the acquisition by Nokia.
I left Alcatel-Lucent with the goal of creating a startup with high social impact. Throughout my career I enjoyed switching domains to brand new challenges that I’m not an expert in, but are on the cusp of the latest technologies. Focusing on longevity was an important place to try and add value. My co-founders and I became passionate about helping older adults keep active and engaged, and avoid loneliness and social isolation — an epidemic in modern society — through a venture that’s focused on celebrating aging rather than focusing on disabilities.
In your opinion, what does senior care look like 10 years from now?
In 10 years, I expect more and more product designers to build products that don’t only focus on 24 to 35-year-olds, but on other demographics as well. I see them designing these products with the target demographics included in the design process. This will lead to wide adoption of technology by older adults, as using technology is no longer a choice — it’s a must in order to live our lives to the fullest. For this reason, we’ve developed ElliQ together with over 150 older adults that actively contributed to every decision we’ve made.
Further, I believe that the way we interact with technology will go through a fundamental change, with new interaction models that are intuitive to understand (using body language, personalities, moods, lights, sounds and images), which will further break adoption barriers.
Have you seen any changes in senior care over the course of your career?
As a newcomer to this space, it’s hard to talk about the changes I’ve seen in my career. I do see clear trends of consumerization of healthcare and insights that can be made via sensors and machine learning.
In the senior care area, I see a very positive trend of providing services to older adults that age at home (aging in place) — within their communities, rather than necessarily moving to a facility. I also see a strong willingness to adopt technologies to allow older adults to thrive, rather than treat issues that arise. I’m hopeful to continue to see openness to non-medical approaches to help improve people’s lives.
What advice do you have for young entrepreneurs?
If you hear lots of no’s, but are convinced on your conviction and see that the core goal of your venture is important, you should continue and persist. Or said another way, if you get a quick yes, most likely what you’re doing is obvious and there is a herd of competitors coming your way.
