IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2021 - 89

innovation capacity of communities of experts in new technologies
with the pressing needs of all operators involved in
the emergency. The TechForCare web platform (https://tech
forcare.com/en), built by I-RIM in collaboration with Maker
Faire Rome (a meeting point for the community of makers
and innovators in Italy), offers a selection of resources, solutions,
technologies, intelligent machines, and robots to fight
the epidemic and its effects [Figure 6(a)].
The key idea underlying the TechForCare platform is to
bring together needs and solutions. Once operators provide
their needs, the platform makes a match with solutions and
producers/FabLabs in the various areas to create prototypes
and realize them.
I-RIM supported TechForCare in the evaluation of the
projects by establishing a scientific committee. The committee
is still active and is composed of four working groups:
makers and biomedical/bioengineering, robotic, and ethics
experts. Each working group evaluates a project considering
different aspects. The makers evaluate the feasibility of a
project in terms of the resources/effort required to produce
it. The biomedical/bioengineering experts analyze healthcare
solutions according to the certification requirements.
The robotic experts assess the TRL of the project. Once a
project is technically approved, the
ethics experts complete the evaluation
by assessing its alignment with ethical
values and principles.
The selected projects are accessible
and available to everyone, from healthcare
professionals to manufacturers of
essential goods and services. Anyone
can either simply look through the
available solutions or collaborate in
defining new ones. As an example, the
NoFaceTouch project [9] (SIRSLab,
University of Siena) provides software
that makes a smartwatch vibrate as
soon as your hand gets close to your
face, to avoid contacts at risk of contagion.
A second example is LHF-Connect
(IIT and the University of Pisa),
which consists of a telepresence robot
realized using a modified vacuum
cleaner robot, two tablets, and few
3D-printed parts, together with free,
open software for guidance and communication
management between a
patient, his or her family, and a volunteer
robot supervisor. This system was
replicated and deployed inside several
COVID-19 hospitals and elderly care
homes [see Figure 6(a)].
Concluding Remarks
The world has changed and will continue
to do so as it comes to terms with
the pandemic and its aftershocks. The COVID-19 crisis has
cast a new light on the existing tensions among the innovation,
production, and fair distribution of private and public
health resources. In normal times, the answer to this problem
is typically constrained by a combination of incentives to
innovation, the removal of trade barriers, and state intervention
in favor of the most vulnerable parts of the population.
This precarious and partial equilibrium has been shaken
by the restrictions to research brought about by intellectual
property rights, the return to state protectionism (export
bans, resource storage), and the collapsing of the transnational
supply chain structure in the pharmaceutical and medical
devices sectors, factors which have all hampered the fight
against the pandemic outbreak [9].
At a hearing of the European Parliament on 21 April 2020,
the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides,
vigorously stressed both the need to encourage the production
of medicines and medical devices in Europe, and to
overcome the limits to European Union intervention in the
area of public health policies, which are still essentially centralized
at the member-state level. The I-RIM framework
helps overcome these challenges by offering projects built
around the expectations, needs, and ideas of people who are,
Citizens
Healthcare
Professionals
Outcomes
Awareness
Sharing and Discussion
Networking
Inclusiveness
Open Display Platforms
Citizen Robotics Approach
Matchmaking Needs and Tech
Cross Fertilization
Tech
Professionals
Companies
Researchers
Makers
Community
Figure 10. The network established in the Italian community and its outcomes. The term
citizen robotics approach was used by Bicchi et al. [19] to describe the response of the
Italian community in an e-letter published in Science Robotics.
DECEMBER 2021 * IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE *
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https://techforcare.com/en https://techforcare.com/en
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2021
