The Government of Navarra and ADACEN presented ‘Retos Robótica’ today, a new social and technological innovation project that seeks to identify the real needs of older people with disabilities and explore the potential of robotics to offer solutions that help improve their autonomy and quality of life. The initiative is funded by Fundación “la Caixa” and developed in collaboration with the Navarra Artificial Intelligence Research Center (NAIR Center) and Centro VidAAs.

The presentation, held in the training room at the IRIS Hub, was attended by the First Vice President, Minister of Presidency and Equality and Spokesperson for the Government of Navarra, Javier Remírez; the Managing Director of ADACEN, Andrés Ilundain; and the representative of Fundación “la Caixa” in Navarra, Izaskun Azcona.

‘Retos Robótica’ proposes a people-centred innovation process that will begin by identifying real needs and challenges, incorporating both the current experience of older people with disabilities and the forward-looking perspective of middle-aged people with disabilities. Families, professionals, specialists and entities from the technology ecosystem will also participate in the different phases of the programme.

The aim is to connect these needs with existing capabilities in the field of robotics in order to devise, assess and develop solutions that can provide distinctive value in real-life situations.

The First Vice President, Javier Remírez, highlighted during his remarks that ‘Retos Robótica’ reflects the Government of Navarra’s commitment to a technological transformation “centred on people and aimed at generating social progress.”

“Technology must be at the service of people. We should not ask only what it is capable of doing, but what people need and how we can use our technological capabilities to respond to those needs,” he said.

Remírez placed ‘Retos Robótica’ within a line of work that the regional government has been developing to connect technological innovation, social innovation and public policies, and recalled previous experiences such as Retos IA and the UMANA project.

“Thanks to projects of this kind, we have been able to confirm something that we now want to apply to the field of robotics: innovation works better when it begins with a challenge rather than a technology,” the Vice President stated.

The Vice President also highlighted the collaboration between public administrations, social entities and technology stakeholders that characterises the project. “We want an Administration that does not innovate alone and innovation that connects the public sector with social entities, companies, technology centres and, most importantly, people,” he explained.

People as Participants from the Outset

For his part, the Managing Director of ADACEN, Andrés Ilundain, highlighted the value of a model in which people participate from the very beginning in identifying challenges and in the subsequent design and validation of possible solutions.

“We do not want to develop a technology first and then look for somewhere to apply it. We are going to do exactly the opposite: first, we are going to listen,” he said.

The project will work with two complementary perspectives. On the one hand, it will gather the current experience of older people with disabilities and, on the other, it will incorporate a forward-looking perspective through middle-aged people with disabilities, with the aim of identifying needs that may arise as their ageing process progresses. They will be joined by families, professionals and entities that will contribute their knowledge of everyday situations and needs that could benefit from robotics-based solutions.

Ilundain highlighted that this methodology makes it possible to move beyond a model in which people are merely recipients of technological solutions and turn them into active agents of innovation. “It is not about adapting people to technology, but about ensuring that technology adapts to people,” he said.

The Managing Director of ADACEN also emphasised that the project aims to analyse the possibilities of robotics realistically. “Our objective is not to demonstrate that a robot can do everything, but to discover what it can genuinely do well and where it can provide distinctive value to people,” he stated.

From Real Needs to Prototype Development

‘Retos Robótica’ will be carried out through four successive phases, making it possible to progress from the initial identification of needs to the development and demonstration of prototypes.

Phase 0 will be a session at the Hub, organised by NAIR Center, aimed at exploring how robotic solutions can improve our everyday lives. It will take place on 16 September, followed the next day by a technology showroom at Centro VidAAs for social entities, companies, public administrations, students and researchers.

The first phase will be a Discovery Sprint aimed at identifying the real needs and challenges of older people and incorporating both their current experience and the forward-looking perspective of middle-aged people with disabilities.

This will be followed by a Co-Design Hackathon, in which users, families, professionals, citizens, innovation and robotics specialists, and multidisciplinary teams will work together to transform the selected challenges into robotic solution concepts.

The proposals will subsequently pass through an Assessment Laboratory and Use Scenarios phase, where aspects such as their usefulness and acceptability, technical feasibility, accessibility and safety, ethical risks, sustainability and real-life implementation conditions will be analysed.

This process will make it possible to select and define the challenge with the greatest potential, establish its use scenario and specify the requirements that the solution must meet.

The final phase will be a Development and Prototyping Hackathon, focused on developing and demonstrating prototypes capable of responding to the selected challenge. The proposals will ultimately be evaluated, and prizes will be awarded to the highest-rated solutions.

The programme therefore seeks to complete a pathway that begins with the needs expressed by people themselves and concludes with tangible solutions: needs, prioritised challenges, robotic solution concepts, use scenarios, and demonstrated and evaluated prototypes.

For her part, the representative of Fundación “la Caixa” in Navarra, Izaskun Azcona, explained that the organisation had decided to support ‘Retos Robótica’ because of its ability to connect technological innovation with social impact.

“Innovation and technology reach their full potential when they help improve people’s lives. Behind this project there is not only technology: there are older people, people with disabilities, families, professionals and real needs to which we want to try to respond,” she highlighted.

“Technological transformation cannot leave anyone behind, but we can go one step further: it is not merely about ensuring that everyone can participate in that transformation, but also that they can participate in its design,” she said. “The success of social innovation cannot be measured solely by the sophistication of the technology we are able to develop. We must measure it by the autonomy we can foster, the barriers we can remove, the opportunities we can create and the improvements we can make in people’s everyday lives,” she stated.

A Social and Technological Innovation Ecosystem

‘Retos Robótica’ continues a strategy of collaboration between the Government of Navarra, social entities and the technology and innovation ecosystem of the Comunidad Foral, with the aim of experimenting with new technologies from a people-centred perspective.

Within this model, ADACEN contributes its experience and direct knowledge of the needs of people with disabilities, older people, families and professionals; NAIR Center contributes its capabilities and specialised knowledge in robotics; and Centro VidAAs, promoted by the Directorate General of Planning, Coordination, Innovation and Evaluation of Public Policies and managed by the public company NASERTIC, acts as a space for social innovation and for connecting social needs, public policies and technological capabilities.

Lastly, Beesy, the consultancy firm that will support the participating entities throughout the different phases planned for the project, will be responsible for developing and facilitating the process.

Source: navarra.es