A mobile for the elderly invented by a young man who wanted to video call his grandmother
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Posted on March 22, 2021
The invention of Jorge Terreu, 22 years old, from Aragón (Spain), has become an ideal tool to fight against loneliness. The device is named after Jorge's grandmother, Maximiliana.
Jorge completed his third year in Computer Engineering in France, in 2018. Although he spoke with his family often, he missed seeing his grandmother Maximiliana, 86, who did not handle video calls or cell phones. So, in three months he reprogrammed a smartphone to automatically answer calls and he sent it home. And they all started using it.
Later, in case he caught his grandmother for a walk, he included a location service, a low battery alert, and a feature that would read messages aloud. They also used it to send reminders, like about medicines, or that Jorge missed her!
Since people keep telling Jorge that his grandmother was not an exception, but the norm, and that everyone would want to use a mobile phone like that, Jorge kept developing the product; and in March 2020, when the pandemic broke out, he donated five prototypes to the Zaragoza hospital so that the elderly, who had old mobiles, could see their family. And they loved it. In summer they began to appear in local media and an investor opted for the project.
Thanks to this economic injection, the Maximiliana company has now four employees (two of them trainees) who ensure that nothing fails in these "bomb-proof" mobiles for which each client pays a monthly fee of 19.90 euros. You do not have to buy the device (the company's provider is Xiaomi), they do not have permanence and can be customised. It works with a data rate that can be contracted with Maximiliana or independently.
At first, they planned to offer the service only in Aragón (Spain), but they began to grow and currently have clients throughout Spain.
They are constantly working on new phone updates, and they notify customers when they implement new functionality. For example, Jorge and his team are working on a module with artificial intelligence that allows to detect risky activities and automatically alerts a family member.
Source: ABC
