Cempaka Belanda: How a robot ended up teaching exercise classes in a Dutch retirement home

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

"The Timing of the Great Shift" – Mar 21, 2009 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ … Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013.
They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader ..."

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: The Humanization of God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Thursday, June 11, 2015

How a robot ended up teaching exercise classes in a Dutch retirement home

The Washington Post, Matt McFarland, May 27, 2015

Residents follow Zora’s instructions during a physical therapy class.
(Regy van den Brand)

They aren’t on Snapchat. They aren’t livestreaming their adventures on Periscope and Meerkat. And they definitely won’t be recording 360 videos from drones.

Yet for residents of Vughterstede — average age 87 — technology isn’t just the bastion of the young. When they gather for a physical therapy class, the senior citizens follow instructions from a 22-inch humanoid robot that can move, speak and dance.

The robot is positioned on a table and demonstrates different exercises, which the residents then try to mimic. A human instructor is present too, and provides individual instruction to anyone needing extra attention.

The chief executive of the nursing home, Tinie Kardol, happens to also be a professor of gerontology at the Free University Brussels. One of his students tipped him off to Zora the robot. Kardol saw an opportunity to improve his own operation and introduced it a year ago.

By then the Belgian makers of Zora had been tinkering on the robot for three years. The QBMT software developers first bought a Nao robot from Aldebaran, a French company, imagining they’d configure it to work as a hotel clerk. Instead they have found a market in health care. First a Belgian hospital inquired about using a robot to demonstrate exercises to children rehabilitating from surgeries.

A Vughterstede resident holds Zora the

robot. Chief executive Tinie Kardol says

he’s been surprised at how his residents

have embraced Zora. (Regy van den

Brand)

Kardol says now over 6,000 elderly people are in direct contact with a humanoid robot in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. One program lets Belgian children at school chat with the elderly by typing on computers in their classrooms. The robot, located in nursing homes miles away, speaks the text. Its eyes light up green as a cue that it’s the senior citizens’ turn to talk.

The Zora robot is also being used in hospitals and one psychiatric institution.

“A lot of elderly people are actually feeling alone. Solitude is something which is horrible for the moment for a lot of elderly people,” said Fabrice Goffin, one of Zora’s creators. “People don’t have all the time to visit their families and they can find some kind of relationship with the robot and that is a nice thing to do.”

At Kardol’s nursing home, the robot spends most of its time in a common area. It reads out weather forecasts and news articles. It’s programmed so that a staff member can type instructions for what to say on a computer.

In some cases, the robot has been able to accomplish what humans can’t. Kardol told me of one resident who hadn’t spoken in four months. One day late last year she was sitting in the common area next to her son. The staff used the robot to address her by name and ask how she was doing.

“I’m well,” she blurted out, surprising everyone in attendance. They then carried on a brief conversation. Interactions like that have motivated Kardol as a researcher to investigate why the robot can trigger positive reactions from those who struggle to communicate.

To others, the appearance of robots in nursing homes might be a sad commentary on how we treat the elderly. Will we all one day let our loved ones be entertained by machines, while we go about our busy lives? And will robots ever replace the humans in nursing homes, once they can do the job at a lower price?

Kardol is adamant that Zora isn’t replacing the role of human contact, or humans’ jobs at his retirement home. But as robots inevitably become more capable, and more retirement homes consider using them, it remains to be seen exactly what role robots will play.