Master’s student creates thermal fall detection system for elderly people
Master’s student Christopher Silver is among the recent graduates of the Ascend Accelerator boot-camp-style program, hosted by the Ingenuity incubator space at Lakehead University.
Christopher graduated from Lakehead’s BEng Software Engineering program and is now studying for a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Inspired by his undergraduate project, Christopher’s venture, Silver Vantage Software, uses computer vision and machine learning to create a thermal fall detection system for elderly people. A thermal sensor will monitor a room, sending an alert to a family member or personal support worker if a fall is detected.
“This is completely automated. The users doesn’t have to do anything on their end. It’s an alternative to most of the current solutions, which use pendants that you have to press if you’ve fallen. Sometimes you can fall and become unconscious, or you might forget to wear it,” Silver said in an interview with TBNewswatch.
“All through high school and university… I always wanted to have my own business. But I never really had the idea until the fourth year of my undergraduate degree.”
He’s now looking to use the system to collect metrics:
“For example a social score is calculated based on how often people are in the area, and for how long, to ensure the users are meeting healthy socializing guidelines. There is also a mobility score; if the system notices that you’re stumbling more often, it might be a predictor of falls to come soon. We also want to do a sleeping score — if you’re sleeping at the same time every night, and how often you get up. Just so there’s other ways that you could improve the health of these people,” added Christopher.
Christopher is asking volunteers to participate in the data collection project. The more people who contribute to the dataset collection, the better results he hopes to achieve with the system.
Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Janusz Kozinski said,
“We are very impressed with Christopher’s extraordinary entrepreneurial zeal that’s led him to transform a brilliant idea into a highly-promising business venture that also has the potential to save lives in the future,”
“Engineers are not just here to invent new technologies to make life easier, we are here to help make life better for humanity, and that’s exactly what Christopher is seeking to do with this exciting new start up.”
Christopher’s company, Silver Vantage Software, is affiliated with Lakehead’s Ingenuity incubator and his mentors include Dr. Thangarajah Akilan from the Department of Software Engineering, Dr. Michael Dohan from the Faculty of Business Administration and Alyson MacKay from Ingenuity.