Transferring the most advanced technology to our day to day to improve the quality of life of users is one of the great objectives of the startup Saturno Labs, but what specifically does this Spanish company that has captured the attention of Amazon?
Natalia Rodríguez, founder and telecommunications engineer, told in an interview for 20BITS that the startup was born from a vital process in which a close relative spent a long time in the hospital, helping them to create a technology prototype. Natalia stated that ” a germ was born that I want to dedicate myself to something that adds value, not only that makes a company earn money, but also helps” . In addition, they carry out many projects that have an impact and have entered the world of psychology , health and accessibility .
Improving people’s health, the great goal of Saturno Labs
Saturno Labs has wanted to enter the health field, for this reason, they have just launched a project with the Viatris Foundation to monitor cancer patients in order to find out how they are emotionally.
Natalia explained that “we follow them throughout their illness and every 21 days we send them a series of questions that we have asked with a team of psychologists to detect how they are , in addition, these professionals send personalized audios to each patient.” The system will have the sufficient capacity to detect the emotional state by voice to send the personalized information to the psychologists .
Patient treatments would be more agile with these technologies.
Thanks to the monitoring of the entire process , a platform has been created so that doctors can know how the users are before making the consultation . For example, if someone is very unwell, they have numerous variables to deal with issues such as depression or anxiety , therefore, notices are issued to healthcare personnel.
The founder added that “it is a three in one, we are going to investigate, help people with these audios and doctors will be able to use this technology so that they can focus on the emotional part. This project will be replicated in other diseases , in addition, we have joined with the team of psychologists from the Institute of Psychology of Emotion and Health with Dr. Marta Redondo at the helm because we need professionals who provide rigor “.
The emotion and enthusiasm could be seen in the interview with Natalia after telling us that “it is a very nice project because we are going to help a lot of people.”
This project began to be used last October in five of the largest hospitals in Madrid , with the endorsement of the Spanish Society of Radiation Oncology (SEOR) and the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM).
Doctor Marta Redondo (left) with Natalia Rodríguez (right).The doctor Marta Redondo (left) with Natalia Rodríguez (right).Saturn Labs
To carry out this project they used Alexa technology, how did they achieve it?
In 2020, the team from Saturno Labs entered the ‘Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge 4’, an Amazon competition , where a few research groups from around the world were selected to participate. Natalia and her team were selected as one of the nine best teams in the world and began to implement the project to improve the Alexa technology through a challenge based on turing tests .
Artificial intelligence is used for injury monitoring, diagnostics, and quality care.
This test consists of demonstrating the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behavior similar to that of a human being, in this case, the ability to hold a conversation with Alexa in English on any subject for more than 20 minutes .
Saturno Labs managed to make some of the users spend up to 50 minutes talking with Alexa on any subject , in addition, Natalia said that “it’s like talking with a friend . ” On the other hand, he added that “in the future, beautiful things can be done to help those people who have lost their voice, also to accompany patients who feel alone.”
In the Amazon competition, English was spoken because it was the standard language, however, Saturno Labs was the first Latin and European team to participate. Natalia stressed that in Spain all this technology is not yet so developed because we are a step behind , therefore, they want to transfer part of that knowledge to exploit it.
In short, the voice of Alexa has not been created, the knowledge has been used to apply it to Spanish databases with the aim of using it in technological fields.
Other projects from Saturno Labs
For the Madrid City Council they have done several projects , the last one being the most pointer to use the voice to create an assistant that allows questions about urban planning about the law and urban regulations.
SaturnoLabs is in charge of going to the law, they detect what the user is asking and what article he refers to, thus, they take the answer to prepare a summary . It is a procedure that you can do in five seconds by voice or by direct message on Twitter , in addition, this project has been one of the first that has been done to the Public Administration with a voice.
Natalia Rodríguez ended the interview stating with great pride that “we will have done something well during these months, we have even more merit in our case because we were a group of young people who work in a startup with a more commercial point of view. We want to learn as much as possible during these months with the most precise technologies to gain knowledge and experience “.
