SafelyYou are passionate about providing safer dementia care. That’s why they go beyond fall detection, providing rich insights and an expert support team to empower fall prevention, helping you deliver person-centred care.
With their artificial intelligence-enabled video, they not only make it possible to see and understand the root cause of falls, but also give a voice to those living with dementia, advocating for them when they can’t do so for themselves. They are reducing falls by 40% and ER visits resulting from falls by 80%, as well as reducing risk and creating safer environments.
Tell Us About the Business, How Did It Come About?
I started the company to build a better world for my mom. Her mom and sister both had Alzheimer’s, and I saw how hard that was on both of them and on her. I set out to build a better world for those with Alzheimer’s and their families.
It’s a race against time before my mom gets to that point and for every other family just like ours. I went to UC Berkeley specifically to build this company where I joined the computer science PhD program to work in the Berkeley AI Research Lab with faculty that were also impacted by Alzheimer’s disease and see if we could find a way to make it better.
What Have You Learnt Since Starting Your Business?
The importance of setting expectations. It sounds obvious when you say it, but so many companies put their best possible results in their marketing materials and then set up every customer for disappointment when they don’t see those results. We like to go one step at a time, make sure what we’re doing really helps, and then set appropriate expectations for customers, so we can bring delight when we exceed those expectations.
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What Challenges Have You Faced?
Too many to count as I’m sure any entrepreneur will tell you. I’ve worked almost every job at the company from sitting in on support groups to make sure I really deeply understand the challenges other families have faced to writing AI code to being our on-site tech support to formulating and testing the go-to-market motion and closing first deals to fundraising and hiring key personnel.
Working in each of those roles has given me a tremendous amount of respect for folks in every type of role. As a company, one of our bigger challenges has just been a lack of understanding of just how big a problem Alzheimer’s disease is. There are so many folks affected and so many more with related forms of cognitive impairment. Most folks that don’t have a loved one affected don’t realise just how many people in need there are.
What Can We Hope to See From You in the Future?
More to support those with Alzheimer’s. There’s so much need and so many opportunities we see to provide more and more support to those impacted, their families, their caregivers, and the broader health system. We can’t wait to see just how much good we can do for the so many impacted just like my family.
