Alan Majer may live in a house surrounded by robots. He may have robot dogs and talk casually of robots that he can navigate via the Internet. He may have cannibalized wheelchairs to build moving robots and have constructed a giant robot arm and a few light sabres.
 
But while Majer says he and his children have a lot of fun controlling his robot army, he's far from being an evil genius. His primary interest in automation and robotics is to build systems that can help people, especially seniors, live an easier life. His company, after all, is called Good Robot—a domain name he bought years ago, before he had the idea for his company and before TV and film producer JJ Abrams started his Bad Robot production company.
 
"For some reason, I thought, Good Robot, I really like the sound of that."
 
But the name languished unused until a couple of years ago, when Majer decided to turn his robot obsession toward more specific and useful purposes. For about the last year and a half, he's been developing an automated system for seniors to use in their homes that will make independent living easier, while recording and sending data about daily patterns to caregivers and allowing for easier monitoring of health.
 
The impetus for his venture, says Majer, comes not only from his interest in robotics, but from his own family.
 
"It's an issue that really touches all people. Until your parents hit that age, you really don't put that much thought into it," says Majer, who's in his forties. "But for my family and my wife's family, we experienced this a bit through our grandparents. Things happen that you can never predict. Families used to be so local to one another, but our families are all several provinces away. There's very little physical contact.
 
"I'm not quite needing my services yet, but my kids are likely to be in some far-flung corner of the world. I want to see something better for my parents, and I definitely want to see something better for me."
 
Majer had been working as a writer and researcher for business strategist Don Tapscott, the author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.
 
"I started to think about Internet connectivity and how it can be imbedded in things. I spent a lot of time researching what information from physical spaces can mean. This is the way the world is moving, it's connectivity, it's sensors being imbedded in things," he says. "My wife works in healthcare and healthcare policy: elderly care and changing demographics. It's a great marriage of technology and an area that was in need of solutions, a real strain that people feel in their families."
 
Majer says he hopes the technology Good Robot is developing will allow seniors who might need some attention to continue to live by themselves while providing a stream of data to healthcare attendants.
 
"When you talk to seniors, the core challenge is maintaining your independence. The idea with this technology is that it'll let the network of family and friends know that something's gone wrong. The real challenge is with caregivers."
 
Good Robot's products will include sensors that attach to things like fridge doors, medicine cabinets or doorways, or wireless scales that will send information on the person's status to the Internet.
 
"The sensors send little signals. I would have guessed that we open the fridge maybe seven times a day. You don't realize you open it maybe 30 times a day. With the medicine cabinet, it's the first thing you open in the morning and the last thing you close at night. It keeps the caregiver a little bit informed. If someone doesn't open their fridge door at 10am, it'll send me an alert."
 
Majer also hopes to incorporate simple automation into homes for things like lighting.
 
"In the bedroom, for example, you often have to walk right across the room, tripping on objects, to turn that switch on and off. Falls are a huge issue for seniors, and a lot of falls occur because of inadequate lighting. With wireless light switches, you can turn the light on from across the room. Technology can do that, turn lights off when you're not there or adjust the temperatures automatically."
 
The trick, says Majer, is keeping things simple. Technology that's complicated to use just wouldn't be effective.
 
"We've always had to bend towards technology which means only geeks can use it. I like the idea of technology that is invisible. If I'm sitting there wondering what to type in, that's technology that gets in the way. I think people's average Internet connection is a mess of wires on the floor. But the technology is now at a level where it doesn't need to have that level of intrusiveness."
 
Majer plans to start seeking outside investors for the company—which so far has been funded almost entirely out of his own pocket—in January, and hopes to start selling his systems in the latter half of 2013. Before then, however, the technology is undergoing extensive testing at Toronto's George Brown College's simulation centre Health eHome. Under a federal funding program from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canadian colleges work with small or medium-sized companies with new concepts that need to be tested.
 
"There's a gap that exists between the primary research that's done by universities and what companies need in order to make those concepts work," says Tyler Krimmel, the program co-coordinator of post-graduate work at George Brown's Centre for Construction and Engineering Technology.
 
Krimmel says Majer approached George Brown to test the practical applications and implementation of his technology, and Krimmel says the college saw an opportunity to involve many of its students. The college is providing testing on technical installation and troubleshooting, using students from the Centre for Construction and Engineering Technology; on data capture and analysis using students from the Centre for Health Sciences; and on Majer's business plan and rollout, using business system analysis students.
 
"It's a very dynamic project," says Krimmel. "From our perspective, it's been a phenomenal way to get our students involved. It's an innovative idea in an emergent area of technology. This is where our students will be working in five or 10 years."
 
Krimmel says that as of next semester, George Brown will be installing the systems into the homes of 15 to 20 volunteers, to test the technology in real-life settings. Majer says that testing and the business analysis make the next few months crucial for Good Robot's future.
 
"Our next six months will be to prove that we can get traction in the market," says Majer. "If we succeed, then we go to market very quickly."
 
Krimmel is confident that Majer's ideas will find a niche in a market he says is primed for such developments.
 
"We know that Ontario's budget dedicates close to 40 percent to healthcare and that figure is getting larger with an aging demographic. We're at the point where a need critically exists for a technology. Alan's idea is to look for an off-the-shelf solution, a packaged solution that is affordable."
 
But while Majer agrees that there is an eager and growing market for such technology, he doesn't want to get carried away by the sci-fi world of robotics of the future.
 
"The idea of robots helping you with your tasks, I don't believe that's going to happen necessarily. Compassionate machines are a long way away. What is the thing that makes the biggest difference in terms of health, happiness and welfare? It isn't the mechanical aspects of technology, it's human interaction. I would feel terrible if anything we put up for sale were to replace the human element," he says. "We have a cultural history of robots that take over the world. We still have the Terminator idea of technology. There's a need to put a friendlier face on technology."
 
Krishna Rau is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto, with a particular interest in social and political issues. His work has appeared in numerous publications including The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Report on Business,Now, TorontoStandard.com, This Magazine, Xtra and Canadian Forum. He also has a chapter in the recent anthology, White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race.