My father’s fight with dementia, depriving him his ability to communicate, is what inspired me to look to modern technologies for ways to support dementia sufferer in communicating their needs. With dementia experts, we created Ann: an IBM Watson virtual agent that blends data from a patient’s medical records and experiences with AI to predict behavior and form hypotheses, to improve patient communication. Currently a second-iteration prototype, Ann demonstrates how we can combine AI with human experience to make healthcare personal.

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.