Dr Gemma Chandratillake, CamRARE trustee and East of England Genomics Education Lead, attended the No Isolation AV1 avatar breakout workshop at the CamRARE Summit 2017 in October.
Like others attending she quickly began to see applications for the robot beyond its original purpose, to reduce isolation for children living with long-term, chronic illness. At the summit, Mio Kristiansen, from No Isolation, gave the audience an opportunity to see the robot in action as it sat on the stage during the afternoon talks, controlled from Edinburgh by Rare Disease carer, father and advocate John Wallace.
John was unable to leave his family to travel to the event so joined us via AV1, watching the action live on his laptop at home, and on one occasion, heckling the speaker and being told to be quiet!
So how did this inspire Gemma to help her students?
Image above from Cambridge Independent newspaper
Screenshot above from C4 news website
Read this article in the Cambridge Independent newspaper, and watch the recent Channel 4 news footage from Jon Snow.