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Robauto's Founder Jalali Hartman
A robot might seem an unlikely candidate to calm an autistic child during a meltdown, but Jalali Hartman has found that it works wonders. Hartman tells the story of working on his first pilot robot for his company Robauto and meeting an autistic boy named Larry. Hartman, an engineer and long-time entrepreneur, watched in awe as Larry interacted and took care of a battery-operated toy; for that moment at least, the toy transformed the boy’s life. From that, Hartman realized that his robots could do so much more for kids with autism and their families.
Hartman’s company Robauto is trying to answer a complex question. “How can we really impact autism with the use of a robot,” asks Hartman. Through his pilot programs, participation in the Heatlhbox accelerator and interaction with his target audience – the autistic community – Hartman is building robots with personalities at a price point their families can afford. It’s groundbreaking work.
Designing a Better Robot
During his design period, Hartman realized he needed the community to be part of the process. Hartman found that everyone had their own design preferences, but that the product would be more successful if the autistic community was actively engaged in that process. “[I] realized they were very good at creating them themselves,” said Hartman.
The results have blown him away; not only are kids helping with the design, but they are working on the software programming as well.
The company partnered with the Longmont library to pilot their first robots. Libraries offer an ideal environment because they are freely accessible to anyone in the community. With library programs focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), his project was a natural fit.
The pilot will expand in 2015, with robots in schools and libraries throughout the Front Range. Hartman will take feedback and lessons learned from the pilot to refine his design into something that will have a human form and a personality.
An Unlikely Champion
Hartman is solving a problem he didn’t set out to answer. He had the idea for a robotics company and set up a display of robots at an expo in Jacksonville, Florida. There was genuine interest in the product, but it was coming from the autistic community, who had heard about the products and showed up to the expo en masse.
Autism affects one out of every 88 children, with over one million children diagnosed in the US now. Hartman says treatment is expensive and often not covered by health insurance. Making treatment easier, and addressing behavioral problems, is one of the things Robauto aims to do.
There are other products on the market, but Hartman says they aren’t accessible. In terms of price points and battery life, the products don’t make the cut. That’s where his company started. He aims to make a product the community will embrace and at a price that’s affordable.
Hartman says the robotics portion of the market is still so new and lacking in standards, that there’s a lot of forward-thinking needed. While he aims to keep his product at a low price point, this type of company is hard to bootstrap, because of the cost of the hardware.
Colorado for its Talent
Hartman is a transplant to Colorado. He moved here after realizing he couldn’t find the talent he needed to make his dream a success in Florida, but that he could in Colorado. Finding the right people – the ones who understand how to prototype a robot and build things to production — has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks and a motivator behind his move.
“There’s tremendous talent here,” said Hartman, who gives a special hat tip to the work over at Modular Robotics. He works with a group of advisors and volunteers, along side the help from the autistic community.
Over the next year, Robatuo hopes to grow, with three commercial devices up and running, so the team can gather data and refine.
