Therapeutic Robot Made by Pasadena Company Selected to Team With Pediatric Hospitals

A Pasadena company that makes a robot designed to interact with children with autism or other developmental disabilities is among 13 young businesses selected to take part in the largest-ever pediatric technology accelerator program, headed by Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the hospital announced Thursday.

Embodied Inc. unveiled Moxie in April. The robot, which facilitates “play-based learning that is paced to weekly themes and missions with content designed to promote social, emotional, and cognitive learning, according to a statement from the company.

Officials at CHLA have selected Embodied and its friendly robot to take part in the KidsX initiative, which brings 51 member organizations together to develop and place burgeoning technologies in children’s hospitals throughout the U.S. to improve the care, CHLA said in a written statement. The finalists were culled from more than 300 applicants.

“KidsX facilitates relationships between leading children’s hospitals and entrepreneurial innovators to build, test and deploy software solutions to make pediatric care exceptionally effective, safe, efficient and convenient for children and families,” the statement said.

 Embodied CEO Paolo Pirjanian said he was looking forward to the partnership.

“During the 13 weeks of the accelerator, we will collaborate with select top hospitals to pilot Moxie in various routine care scenarios and enter into agreements for a larger pilot testing of Moxie with a view for large scale deployments in the future,” he said.

While the product is new, initial results have been promising, according to Pirjanian.

“Our research is still ongoing and preliminary, but we’ve been beta testing Moxie with families across the U.S. and are excited to share that parents have been reporting positive behavioral changes in their child after engaging with Moxie,” he said.

“Changes include feeling happier and less lonely, being better able to cope with their emotions and calm themselves down when upset, increased politeness and helpfulness, expressing thoughts and feelings more clearly, and greater interest in the thoughts and feelings of others,” he said. “Again, we’re still gathering and analyzing data, but are thrilled with these early results.”

The invention met with commercial success, as well, with orders quickly overshadowing production capacity, Pirjanian said. Embodied was forced to stop taking orders and instead compile a waiting list as the company works to build more machines.

“We’ve been pleased with the reception of Moxie since our initial announcement this past April,” he said. “We were recently named to TIME’s list of The Best Inventions of 2020 and were a CES Innovation Award 2021 Honoree.”

The 12 other companies selected for the KidsX project come from across the U.S., and one is based in the U.K., according to CHLA.

CHLA Chief Innovation Officer and KidsX Managing director Omkar Kulkarni said the hospital was proud of the assembled cohort of business partners and “could not be more eager to lend our expertise and guidance as they create tangible solutions that will transform the pediatric digital health innovation landscape, which has suffered in the past from lack of funding and support.”

“We specifically sought out early stage companies focused in the pediatric space or companies who had found some traction in the adult market that were looking to enter the pediatric market,” he said. “We believe that the KidsX model will accelerate each organization’s ability to source, screen, prioritize, test and deploy purpose-built digital health solutions at scale.”

CHLA Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Lara Khouri said while children make up 20% of the nation’s hospital population, innovation in the pediatric arena is often overlooked.

“By directly collaborating with the world-class children’s hospitals in the KidsX network, companies will be able to validate product and market fit in pediatrics more quickly, saving valuable time and resources and bringing much-needed digital health tools to patient families faster than ever before,” she said.

Pirjanian said the company is working hard to build as many Moxies as it can to meet demand.

“Five years ago, we set out on this moonshot vision to revolutionize childcare with an adorable, lifelike and believable robot character fueled by A.I.,” he said.

“Obviously, we couldn’t have anticipated that the world would be in a mental health crisis due to COVID,” Pirjanian said. “As a result, the need for our solution is even more critical and our team is working around the clock to bring it to as many children as possible. We cannot wait to be able to have a positive impact in their lives.”

More information on Embodied and Moxie is available on the company’s website at embodied.com.