What started as a student project in Robotics at TU Delft has, with support from Healthy Start, grown into an ambitious healthcare innovation project: NEOPERFECT. In this public-private partnership, startup Neollie, Erasmus MC and TU Delft (RoboHouse) are joining forces to further develop a robot that automates the preparation of food for newborns in hospitals. Healthy Start played a connecting and coordinating role in this – from the first idea to a successful application in the WorkTech call of Medical Delta.

The startup Neollie was founded by a group of TU Delft students, together with pediatrician-neonatalist drs. Tom Ouwehand from Erasmus MC. Based on a shared vision of smarter care, they developed a prototype that was tested in the Sophia Children’s Hospital. The robot automates the precise measuring, mixing and heating of breast milk, a process that is normally intensive for nurses and can be prone to errors. By using technology where it really adds value, valuable time of care providers can be regained for the direct care of the very youngest. At the same time, the safety and consistency of the food is improved. The project shows how collaboration between care, technology and entrepreneurship leads to scaling up: from idea to start-up, and now the further development to clinically applicable innovation. NEOPERFECT is therefore a textbook example of what Convergence and Healthy Start aim for: innovating together for a healthy start for all children. By connecting technology, care and society, we build sustainable solutions for complex challenges in child care.