I’m the CEO of CareYaya, a Raleigh-based venture-backed startup focused on improving elderly care through technology. My co-founder Autumn Konz (cc’d, currently practicing at Duke Neurology) and I worked with Prof. Terrell in the UNC COMP 523 course in the Fall semester to work on our web app platform, to help senior citizens suffering from dementia (and their families) find local caregivers who could provide in-home care services and assistance with activities of daily living. We loved the experience working with COMP 523, and one of the students on the team actually just joined our start-up full-time after he graduated from UNC in December!
Our elder care service is going live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area in February 2020, so we’ve been quite busy focusing on the upcoming launch, but we already have a couple of innovation ideas that we could really use help with, that could enable us to deliver higher-quality care for senior citizens in the Triangle if we can get them implemented. They aren’t vital to the service near-term, but if we can get them done even halfway decently, they could really help make a positive impact on people’s lives.
One of them involves basic mobile app development (a simple app just for caregivers to utilize for check-in/check-out and location tracking of care appointments, so the care receiver can accurately track & pay for the care sessions). Other ideas involve utilizing the phone mic to detect laughter during the care sessions (and if possible, to encourage laughter, such as the “laugh detector” by Ideo, https://www.ideo.com/blog/why-your-office-needs-a-laugh-detector), or utilizing the mobile app to upload pictures & videos of the care session (so the elderly person’s family members can get emailed photos/videos of the care session, and feel comfortable that their loved one is in good hands with a kind caregiver). We have more advanced ideas as well, and we are totally flexible – would love to see what the students could do if they become inspired!
In addition, both Autumn and I love the opportunity for mentorship (as well as Gavry, our CTO, as he is a recent graduate of UNC CS), and I think students would enjoy working on our project, as we’d provide a creative outlet, constant feedback, and potential for part-time or full-time employment after the semester is over. We would also welcome guidance and involvement from you, as Autumn and I both come from backgrounds in business, senior care and medicine, but decidedly not technology or software development – we have ideas on how tech can improve the experience of aging care services, and love to work with experts to bring them to life.
The video is one we made back in August, before we changed the name of the organization.