Penn students develop AI-driven solution to transform senior care

Having spent years as a child patient requiring surgeries, chemotherapy, and hospital stays, Melanie Herbert, a fourth-year student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, intimately understands what it means to rely on caregivers for basic needs. This firsthand experience, combined with her engineering expertise at Penn, inspired her to develop Sync Labs, an AI software solution for the senior-care industry that addresses a growing crisis in eldercare.

According to industry projections cited by Herbert, by 2029, one caregiver will be responsible for eight seniors, a ratio that limits the quality and personalization of care. Sync Labs offers a privacy-centric AI system that aims to reduce staff exhaustion, fill caregiving gaps, and enable seniors to maintain their independence while receiving personalized care.

“Aging is something most of us will all go through, and it is an experience where people can unfortunately lose their independence, something I can understand from being a patient myself,” says Herbert, an electrical engineering major from Short Hills, New Jersey. “Caregivers need our support in meeting the growing number of seniors so they can always give the best, most personalized care.”

Manual data capture and time-consuming processes keep caregivers from doing what they do best: supporting our seniors’ health and wellness. And Sync Labs is making that a priority. The trio are recipients of the President’s Innovation Prize. They will receive $100,000 for Sync Labs and a $50,000 living stipend each.

Awarded annually, the President’s Innovation Prize and President’s Engagement Prizes empower Penn undergraduates to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. The Prizes are the largest of their kind in higher education.

The idea for Sync Labs began about two years ago, with Herbert going “all in” on building the company in the fall of 2023. The team has since expanded to include Nami Lindquist, a dual-degree student in computer science and economics in the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology from Bellevue, Washington, and Alex Popescu, a systems engineering major in Penn Engineering from Easton, Connecticut.

How Sync Labs works

The Sync Labs project centers around a privacy-first monitoring hub. This system gains data from critical areas of seniors’ living spaces, including a kitchen picture frame with a camera sensor and a separate bathroom sensor. Additionally, the hub connects with other products such as wearables a senior might already be using.

The goal is to gain a full image of each senior without anyone having to manually document anything. And unlike traditional monitoring systems, what makes the team’s technology unique is that it processes data directly on the device itself—an approach called “edge computing”—which means no video footage is ever streamed, recorded, or saved, protecting privacy.

“Between these two sensors, we detect eating, presence in spaces, falls, and bathroom frequency and duration,” Herbert says. “All these things are very important in understanding the health and wellness of every senior. We are always working to include additional detections.”

The team integrates these data points with health information and personal caregiving needs to create a comprehensive picture of each senior’s daily life and requirements. This information is then transformed into an easy-to-use app for caregivers called Alice.

“We’re building a tool for caregivers,” Popescu says. "In the current system, caregivers are spread so thin that when they finally see a senior, they spend most of that precious time just trying to figure out what's happened since their last visit, asking about meals, falls, bathroom visits, or unusual events. What Alice does is automatically capture this critical information, creating a real-time picture of activities, so when caregivers arrive they can immediately focus on providing actual care rather than playing detective.”

The results so far have been promising, the team says, as early pilots show care givers using the Sync Labs system can see three times more people per day on average while providing more personalized care.

The team

Herbert’s experience requiring ongoing care as a child gave her insight into health care delivery from the patient perspective. During the COVID pandemic, she witnessed firsthand how overwhelmed care providers struggled to maintain quality care under pressure. “I set out on a mission to use my Penn degree and experiences to solve a really large issue,” she says.

For Lindquist, the motivation comes from a desire to make an impact. “I’m very aware of the opportunities that I have at Penn. Seeing how the product actually makes a big difference in people’s lives is really what was exciting to me,” she says of the team’s work to better document seniors’ conditions to improve health outcomes.

Popescu, who has had grandparents in and out of care for the past 10 years, was drawn to the intersection of health care and technology. “There’s a huge opportunity here to make a significant impact on the quality of lives that seniors live,” she says.

From pilots to scale

Sync Labs has already generated revenue by conducting seven pilot studies with senior-care facilities and in-home care providers, including Insight Living, Ativo, and Home Instead and in collaboration with Bayada. This summer pilots with Philadelphia’s Fountain View and Humanitas are planned.

At Insight Living, leadership saw the pilot as more than just a test; it was a chance to shape the future of care. “We’re always looking ahead to what’s next in resident care,” says Bryan Ziebart. “Supporting Sync Labs as a test site was a great opportunity to help shape how emerging technologies could someday complement care in long-term care communities.”

The impact on daily operations became even more tangible at Ativo. “It is a game changer for caregiving,” says director Valerie Ramerez. “There are just so many details that we miss; it’s impossible to have 24-hour monitoring for every senior. This system helps me walk in during the morning and know what we’re walking into based on behaviors from the day before. It helps us to not walk in blind.”

At Humanitas Hospice, where supporting home-based comfort is critical, Sync Labs’ technology represented something entirely new. “This is the first tech solution of its kind in the hospice and home-bound care space,” says Brooke Black, director of clinical services. “It empowers care givers to confidently meet the needs of their loved ones at home while enhancing communication across care teams.”

Currently, the team deploys off-the-shelf components housed in custom 3D-printed cases designed to resemble picture frames, blending into home environments to increase comfort and adoption. As they scale, they plan to transition to off-the-shelf tablets for affordability and ease of deployment.

Looking ahead, Sync Labs is focused on three main goals: further refining the product, running additional pilots to gather real-world feedback, and securing the funding needed to support scalable growth.

Penn support

Sync Labs has participated in the Penn I-Corps program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Venture Lab’s VIP-X accelerator. They’ve also received legal support from the Detkin IP Clinic and consulting from Snider Consulting, which provided MBA advisors. Sync Labs has raised more than $400,000 in non-equity funding. The team now prepares for their first investment round.

Herbert, Lindquist, and Popescu are grateful for their mentors, who include Sid Deliwala, director of lab programs at Penn Engineering; John Ondik, program director of Wharton’s Snider Consulting; Brian Halak, professor of practice of Engineering Entrepreneurship; and Jeffrey Babin, professor of practice and associate director of Engineering Entrepreneurship and the engineering faculty director for Venture Lab.

“Penn didn’t just give us the tools to build a startup. It gave us the conviction to believe we could improve lives and the support to make it really happen,” Herbert says. “Supporting caregivers and enabling seniors to live the most independent, healthy, fulfilling lives has made this an incredibly meaningful journey.”