Challenge: Wildcard – Propose any technological solution for any marginalised community
Co-creating & piloting assistive robot FLOo for parents with disabilities

Together with the open call and co-investment of youthcare organization Levvel, Garage2020 will pilot the co-designed assistive robot FLOo in Amsterdam for parents with intellectual disabilities in vulnerable positions in society. The project aims to improve the self-esteem of parents, enhance family life, promote self-reliance in parenting, and break the cycle of problems by utilizing the services of the FLOo robot, which provides easily accessible and always available care and support without judgement.

The project is focused on marginalized families in Amsterdam, where one or both parents have intellectual disabilities. These families are in vulnerable positions, have poor access to good healthcare and parenting support, and often live at or below the poverty line. In the pilot we will focus on three families in Amsterdam (already in care with Levvel) with in-depth piloting of additional support of FLOo and use co-creation methods to customise FLOo to the needs of every specific family. There are about 23000 – 46000 parents that face challenges in child rearing because of these disabilities in the Netherlands. Between 2000-3000 children are born within vulnerable families every year. Many of them live in cities like Amsterdam (exact numbers are not publicly accessible).