What is SARA?
SARA is a social care robot developed to address two of the most pressing challenges in Dutch healthcare: the wellbeing of residents in care environments, and the growing workload on care staff in the context of a structural staff shortage.
SARA is designed to engage with residents, providing companionship, entertainment, and social stimulation in a way that feels natural and non-intrusive. It is deployed in care homes and assisted living facilities, where it complements the work of care professionals rather than replacing it.
The problem it addresses
The Netherlands, like many countries, faces a significant and growing shortage of care professionals. At the same time, residents in care environments, particularly those with dementia or limited mobility, are at risk of social isolation, which directly affects their mental and physical health. SARA was developed in direct collaboration with healthcare institutions as a practical, scalable response to both challenges.
Technology
SARA is a full-stack robotics product combining:
- A mobile robotics platform with actuators enabling navigation and physical presence in care environments
- Computer vision for face detection and recognition, emotion estimation, and environmental awareness for safe navigation
- Speech recognition and synthesis enabling natural language interaction in Dutch, so residents can talk to SARA without any specialist knowledge
- A secure cloud backend for remote monitoring, content management, and analytics for care organisations
- A content and engagement layer with games, music, quizzes, and conversations tailored to the interests and cognitive level of individual residents
My role
I joined SARA Robotics as interim CTO (CTO a.i.) from February to December 2023. I led the technical team and was responsible for the overall product architecture, aligning the robotics, AI, and cloud layers into a coherent and maintainable system. I also helped establish engineering processes and roadmap prioritisation during a critical phase of the product’s development.
