If anything, the world’s biggest electronic show last week proved one thing: the world has no shortages of tech to enable a more comfortable and convenience lifestyle. However, while the world moves on with the tech that puts gadget heads in cloud nine, there was at least one company on the show floor that has armed itself with a more wholesome and meaningful mission. The company in question is Sproutel. Sproutel is a research and development workshop that create tech toy for children to help them make through the toughest time of their lives.
And in case of the Best of CES 2018 Award winner, My Special Aflac Duck, it is designed that help young cancer patients cope with the treatment. Beneath its furry, flurry cover is a RFID-enabled robotic duck that, with the aid of emoji badges, help young cancer patients to convey their emotions. By placing the chosen emoji badge or disc against the duck’s chest, My Special Aflac Duck can help communicate the feeling of the patients, be it positive or negative.
This duck is here to the spokesperson of sort to the children going through cancer treatment and therefore, in addition, to conveying their feelings at the moment in point with the emoji discs, it serves as a companion which the children can pat, feed and, you know, enjoy the company of someone, or in this case, something, that understands them. The company even went to length to develop an IV kit that allows the child to administer medicines, much like part of the process of chemotherapy, and having the duck sharing the pain the child is going through so as to alleviate the child’s fear and anxiety with regards to going through the treatment.
Another feature of this tech toy is, the fluffy coat is removable and washable, therefore ensuring utmost hygiene can be maintained – a factor that is critical to cancer patients who are low in immunity. That’s just a detail. Not forgetting about children’s inherent nature to create and imagine, the accompanying app and an accessory called ‘rocket ship’ further allows the child to create imaginary scene. All the child have to do is to pick a scene on the app and place the rocket ship against the RFID reader on the duck’s chest, and My Special Aflac Duck will play out the scene by the way of the sound.
Remembering that these kids are cancer patients and being cancer patients, they will not be able to do many of things regular children do, and as such, this duck offers them an avenue, a path of sort, to the world of boundless imagination without putting them at risks. My Special Aflac Duck is commendable product, but what makes it even more admirable is, this CES award winner is not for sale. Sproutel plans to get it to the hands of children diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. and without cost.
While I am most certainly impressed by this tech toy and what its mission, I am even more overawe by this philanthropic gesture. And oh, Aflac is, btw, an U.S. insurance company. Just in case you are wondering… Keep on reading for to learn more in the embedded video.
Source and images: Yanko Design.
