Ivo Herzig and his partners developed Sara – a robotic arm for wheelchair users. The technology behind Sara allows to physically interact with humans in a very natural and delicate way. Ivo Herzig gives us some interesting insights into their technology and the beautiful moments as an entrepreneur.
Robots can assist us with activities in our daily lives. Especially people with impairments can master their lives more independently again with the help of technologies. That’s exactly where your idea comes in. How did it come about? «One of our founders developed a novel soft robotic actuator during his PhD at ETH Zurich. The original application was for adjusting the orientation of photovoltaic panels, like sun tracking. The actuator showed very promising characteristics, such as intrinsic compliance, variable stiffness and a high force-to-weight ratio, and we soon were thinking about using it for assisting humans. Healthcare and personal robotics are a perfect fit for our technology because the intrinsic safety of our technology allows our robotic arm to physically interact with humans in a very natural and delicate way, something that conventional industrial robots can’t do. Industrial robots are heavy, bulky, and non-compliant and thus, they pose a risk of injuring people that are too close to them.»
It’s nice when you can give people a bit of independence back with a safe technology. What are the best experiences you’ve had so far thanks to Sara? «The first time we showed our prototype soft robotic arm to a person that lives with tetraplegia and seeing his reaction to it was a very special moment, because we could really see how our product can improve someone’s quality of life.Another favorite is our late night work sessions when our team meets in our lab and we try out new things, work on prototypes and of course share the occasional joke.»
But there are certainly always new challenges. Which ones are you facing at the moment? «Robotics is a highly competitive field and it is very important to find the specific use cases where our technology gives us a competitive advantage. The field of soft robotics is a growing and very promising research area, but outside of academia soft robots are not very well known today. We aim to change that. We are certain that soft robots with their intrinsic safety will play an important role in the future of personal robotics. However, there is of course the challenge of overcoming the initial technology skepticism that we face with our new approach. In addition, we are of course also confronted with the usual start-up challenges such as initial financing and how to juggle our limited personnel resources between business and technology development and fundraising.»
How did the STAGE UP coaching session and workshops help you to deal with your challenges? «Coaching is very important. Originally, we were a team of engineers with limited business experience. As an engineer it is easy to fall in love with your product and the technology and forget that there are other important aspects to a successful start-up. Since then we expanded our team with an experienced business advisor who helps a lot in keeping us on track. The STAGE UP coaching workshops were very helpful in strengthening our project, for example the techniques introduced in the Business Modelling workshop greatly helped us to focus on the important questions that we need to address with our project. It was also always interesting to meet and interact with the other start-up teams in the competition, the atmosphere was always very open and friendly.»
With your experience as a founder, what advice would you give to future founders? «The product has to solve a real and existing problem. Focus on one thing and do that well.»
So I take it you’re continuing to put your focus only on Sara? «Yes, at the moment we are fully focused on our current project Sara, our safe robotic arm. We have ideas on how to expand into additional markets and apply our technology in new areas in the future. We believe that Sara is just the first step of bringing soft robots from academia to real-world applications. We have the vision, that in 5 years, we are a fast-growing start-up with our first product Sara – a safe robotic arm for wheelchair users – on the market and with a growing customer base. We will also be working on new and upgraded versions of our product.»
This sounds very promising, thanks for the insight and continued success moving forward!