About

CAPTAIN Coach is a Greek company with a strong research focus, specializing in digital solutions for healthy ageing and independent living. CAPTAIN provides radically new UIs for empowering and motivating people in need of guidance and care, including projections wherever needed inside the house, speech recognition and generation and recognition of body position and movement for interacting with the system. CAPTAIN develops and employs various AI components for environmental monitoring, movement, speech and emotion analysis, user modeling and behaviour prediction. It supports setting goals, getting feedback along the process until the goal achievement. Goals are referred, but not limited to four domains that enhance wellbeing in everyday life, namely physical, cognitive, social and nutritional. External experts and stakeholders can also create new goals for the CAPTAIN system in the form of external plugins. CAPTAIN coach P.C. is a spin-off coming from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and adopts Agile and SCRUM methodologies for the development of the product in order to ensure product-market fit.

Solution & Product

CAPTAIN COACH utilizes state-of-the-art technologies to turn the older adults’ home into a gentle, unobtrusive coach. To achieve this, CAPTAIN COACH utilizes a hardware device consisting of a micro projector, sensors and a build-in camera placed in the users’ living environment. This device allows detection of the user’s presence, activity and interaction with voice or gesture, intentionally avoiding typing on phone, tablets or similar devices. State-of-the-art technologies used are real-time 3D sensing technologies, speech analysis, non-invasive physiological and emotional data analysis, and intelligent comprehension of user’s behaviour and actions. The user utilizes the technology to set the so called “Smart Goals”, which are configured by voice or gesture. Example of such a Smart Goal to be set up is “I want to call relatives more often”. The system intelligently defines the order of coaching motivational messages and interventions to achieve best outcomes and adherence to goal.

Innovation & Scalability

CAPTAIN COACH differentiates itself from the competition by offering a variety of state-of-the-art technologies or methodologies such as artificial intelligence, projective interfaces, augmented reality, 3D sensing, context and emotion detection. In fact, by supporting different coaching scenarios, CAPTAIN COACH all-in-one solution aims to reach an independent life for older adults in their own homes and avoid nursing homes. The scenarios in the tested use cases illustrate the CAPTAIN COACH’s unique selling points: - A projective, tangible and user-friendly UI interface: Users interact with CAPTAIN COACH through tangible interfaces, transforming the living environment into an interactive environment where the seniors can interact using movements. The interface integrates speech interaction the SMART goal coach. Usability and user friendliness mark this element of the technological approach. - Non-invasive physiological and emotion data collection and analysis: CAPTAIN COACH’s psychological and emotion data collection and analysis will support the collection of assessment data and how computerized tools can be used to assist in the management of a person's emotional state. - Non-invasive movement and gait data analysis: Movement analysis rely on the use of sensors. Real time interaction feeds the CAPTAIN COACH system, while existing data privacy regulations are respected.

Traction & achievements

CAPTAIN COACH was among the winners of EIT Digital Venture Program 2020 (https://www.eitdigital.eu/venture-program/winners-2020/) and has won a 10k prize. Currently is in the face of deploying the CAPTAIN prototype to 8 older adults homes in order to assess the value of our product and generate more independent and objective feedback, which will then be analyzed and used as a starting point for fine-tuning the device.

Team & Why Us

CAPTAIN COACH team has many years of experience in the implementation of Research and Innovation projects in national and European level. The core team has complementary skills in engineering, marketing, business management and medical domain. They also combine strong scientific, technical, research and innovation skills as they have backgrounds from working in research and industrial environments. They are working together for more than 3 years. They demonstrate capacity in Start-Ups management and support and successful cases of previous work inside Start-Ups and SMEs. The same team has won the EIT digital prize and fund and participated in the EIT digital incubator. The team maintains a strong bond with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and have continuous communication with the health and social care domain.

Funding Needs

By the end of 2021, we expect to generate revenue primarily from grants, project revenues, consulting and a small amount of sales due to the distortion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect to generate a total of €0.5M in expenses by the end of 2022, which we plan to cover it by the initial shareholders’ contribution and by receiving financial contributions by business angels and investors.