Mumbai start-up launches 'personal robots' for kids

Mumbai start-up emotix, founded by three ex-IITians, on Tuesday unveiled Miko 2, India's first advanced 'personal robot' for children.

Celebs such as Soha Ali Khan, psychologist Mona Gajre, IIT-B Professor-Emeritus C. Amarnath and NASSCOMM President Debjani Ghosh and other personalities were present at the launch.

The WiFi-operated robot, costing Rs 24,999, will be available from December 15, and will help parents in early education, development of children by engaging in 'playful learning'.

"The robot can initiate and old, long conversations with kids, impart academic and general knowledge. It is powered by a proprietary emotional intelligence engine developed in-house by emotix, enabling the robot to identify and remember the child's moods and adapt to it," said co-founder and CEO Sneh Rajkumar Vaswani.

The Miko 2 encompasses a major makeover to its maiden product, Miko launched last year, and the new series of robots can asee, hear, sense, express, talk, recognize faces, remember names, sense moods, initiate conversation, and learn form its own environment to develop a bond with the child.

Miko 2 comes with a new HD camera for face recognition, hear through active noise cancellation microphones and has edge sensors to save it from running off edges likes tables or stairs, among other sophisticated features.

The Miko was created by a multidisciplinary team of engineers, mathematicians, artists and neuropsychologists and evoked a huge response from parents, prompting emotix to venture into the global personal robotics space for education, healthcare, entertainment and defence, said Vaswani.

The Miko 2 incorporates games, riddles, fun facts, rhymes, music, dance and also enables third-party content players to publish their content, which includes ICSE curriculum, Storywalker and Amar Chitra Katha stories.

Besides, parents can conduct a video calling on 'wheels' through Miko from anywhere in the world, and a parental dashboard to help them track and guide the child's interation with the robot.

"Our aim is to create machines on human patterns and blur the distinction between physical, digital and biological walls to solve grave consumer problemsa Miko 2 is an affirmation of our commitment to make learning powerful, yet fun and simple," said Vaswani.

An advances robotics company, emotix was founded in 2015 by Vaswani, Prashant V. Iyengar and Chintan S. Raikar -- all alumni of IIT-Bombay.

Now, emotix plans to bring their platform solutions to every household globally, with a vision of reaching 20 million homes by 2023.

--IANS

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