Voices 2025: The Robots who care
Growing up in Bayside, Dublin, Niamh showed an interest in science and engineering from a young age.
“My dad was an engineer and we used to do little science projects together when I was young; I was always interested in how things work – I would take things apart like light plugs as a child – and both of my parents fostered that curiosity.
"My dad was also an entrepreneur and I watched him build a business from scratch, which I think had an influence on me and my ambitions for the future.”
With a natural talent for subjects like science and maths in school, Niamh was also creative: “I think engineering and art go hand-in-hand; I was always trying to solve problems by making things with my hands.”
When Niamh was 13 years old, she was given the opportunity to attend a robotics programming summer camp in DCU, which ignited her interest in robotics.
“After that camp, I was keen to go to DCU when I finished school and it lit the spark for me to do mechanical engineering. It was a really positive experience.”
Fostering talent
After her Leaving Cert, Niamh studied mechanical and manufacturing engineering at Dublin City University. Not only was she excited to start her Bachelor’s Degree but she also thew herself into the social aspect of the DCU campus, enrolling in various societies.
“I spent all my money during Freshers Week joining every society I could! I ended up going on a skiing trip with DCU and getting involved in the DCU Fashion Show. I had always been quite a shy person, but at DCU I felt my personality really blossomed.
"I became much more social and outgoing; I gained the ability to walk into any room and speak confidently. I believe these soft skills are only going to become more and more important as we move forward with AI and I would encourage people to take advantage of extra-curricular activities at university, because doing this has served me so well.”
During her degree Niamh realised that, while she really liked mechanical engineering, she was also very interested in the software and maths side of the course work.
“DCU was really supportive to me when it came to moving towards specific areas of interest. In fourth year, we usually do a project suggested by the lecturer but my professor at the time, Lorna Fitzsimons, was happy for me to suggest a different project outside of my core coursework. I requested to work on developing my own software project, which was a sound monitoring device that I built in my dad’s company. DCU is great at fostering what you are good at and what you want to get out of your course and I was really appreciative of that.”
Building robots from scratch
Before going on to do a Masters in AI and Machine Learning, Niamh worked with global online marketplace Etsy, which was setting up a software team in Dublin. In this role, Niamh built internal tools for the software team and had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco, New York, Berlin, Paris and London.
While doing her Masters, Niamh became aware of a research team in Trinity College Dublin that was building robots from scratch: “A lot of other research teams were buying robots off the shelf and programming them, so this was unique and interesting.”
The robotic work was also linked to healthcare, an area that Niamh was very interested in specialising in: “I was always interested in how technology could benefit the healthcare system – I almost considered doing biomedical engineering for my degree.” She linked up with some of the researchers and the end result was the establishment of Irish start-up Akara Robotics, developing robotics and AI technologies for use in hospitals.
Meet Stevie
The first robot built by the Akara team was Stevie – a social robot deployed to work in nursing homes to combat isolation and loneliness among residents.
Niamh spent three months living in a care home in Washington DC with Stevie: “Stevie’s job was to interact with older adults to help battle loneliness amongst the elderly and those living in care homes. Stevie could sing songs, run bingo and basically free up the staff to manage their key duties.” The innovative service attracted worldwide attention and Stevie ended up on the cover of TIME magazine in 2019.
The next move by Akara robotics was equally innovative. Just before Covid-19 hit, the Akara team began researching the development of a robot to tackle disinfection within operating rooms and hospitals.
“Infections are a huge problem within the hospital system. How we disinfect a hospital has not changed since the Spanish Flu Pandemic – we are still using bleach. The initial idea came from our work with Stevie; during the day Stevie was focused on social duties and at nighttime the robot would clean the retirement home using UV light, which can break down viruses at a higher rate than bleach. When Covid arrived we realised this was our chance to help and we jumped at the opportunity build on our work.”
The company was successful in raising a European Innovation Council (EIC) grant and private funding of five million euro to bring this idea to life and look to sell this new product to hospitals in Ireland, the UK and the US.
The hospital of the future
Stevie currently exists as a research platform: “We have a loneliness epidemic and, in the future, this technology I believe will be really prevalent. The technology has seriously advanced even in the past five years. But the concept remains that our robots are only there to aid staff and not to replace human interaction. I am passionate about that.
"In Akara, when we deploy any technology we do an assessment as to what impact it will have on society, will it replace or change roles etc. Our disinfection robot will act as an aid to hospital cleaners and the hope is that they will be more efficient through managing the work the robot does. It is so important to make sure that our technology is adding to society and not having a negative effect.”
Akara’s disinfection technology is being used in a hospital in the US and also in Donnybrook Royal Hospital and there are plans in the pipeline to scale up.
“We aim to reduce the manual tasks in an operating room by two hours a day with our technology. Using AI in hospitals also means that important data can be captured and fed directly back to the relevant teams. We are moving from cleaning robots to ultimately creating the ‘smart hospital operating room of the future’.”