August 2025

Some months are for sowing, while others are for reaping. August was certainly one of the latter for the MEMoPAD project, and it’s a joy to share the fruits of our collective efforts with you!

🏆 Harvesting Our Hard Work: August Highlights Paper Accepted at BCS HCI 2025! Our 2-page paper on co-designing human-centred AI has been accepted for the BCS HCI 2025 Workshop in Cardiff. This work was developed in collaboration with Carmel McGrath and Lucy Condon from the NIHR ARC West, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust.

Presenting in London next week! We will be presenting a scientific poster at the MultimodalAI’25 workshop in London this September. This will focus on MEMoPAD’s technical side, and I’m grateful to Vincenzo Dentamaro from the University of Bari -currently in research visit at Oxford University- for his expertise. I also want to extend a special thanks to the workshop organisers for their generosity in providing a grant to cover the costs of attending.

New Funding Secured! We have successfully secured a £1,500 grant from the NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board. This funding will be dedicated to Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) activities, ensuring that the participants’ voices remain at the heart of our work.

Top Project on VoiceIn! We were thrilled to learn that MEMoPAD is one of the most interacted-with projects on VoiceIn, a wonderful platform from the University of Manchester connecting researchers with the public. Thank you for your interest and engagement!

✅ A Big Step Forward: Ethics for Phase V is Approved! I’m delighted to announce that we have received full ethical approval for Phase V of the MEMoPAD project. The process was incredibly smooth, and I’m deeply grateful for the support network that made it possible.

A special thanks goes to my supervisors David Western and Miles Thompson, as well as Mireia Bes Garcia from the Department of Imagination at the University of Bristol for their invaluable advice. I’m also very grateful to Paul White, whose support and precious guidance on previous ethical applications helped me understand how to properly manage these processes. This next phase is a major milestone where we will begin implementing an initial version of the working prototypes that we started developing in Phase IV. We can’t wait to share more details with you in the coming months.

⌚ Behind the Scenes: A Peek at the Prototype’s Tech As we gear up for Phase V, you might be curious about the technology we’re using. For our prototype, we chose the Google Pixel Watch 2. Here’s a brief, non-technical reason why: a. It has advanced sensors: The watch allows us to access data from its heart rate sensor (PPG), skin temperature sensor, and a sensor that tracks tiny changes in sweat related to emotional responses (cEDA). b. Accessible yet Powerful: While it’s a commercial device you can buy in a store, its operating system (Wear OS) is still quite open. This is key, as it gives us the raw, high-quality data we need to conduct research and develop ‘affective computing models’, systems that can begin to understand emotional states.      This technology provides an affordable, still powerful and reliable foundation for building and testing the MEMoPAD concept in the real world.

🧦 Looking Ahead: An Exciting New Collaboration On top of the core project work, we’ve also started a collaboration on a fascinating side project! This study brings together two innovative devices: HUG by LAUGH®, led by Jac Fennell: a soft, comforting sensory device with a simulated heartbeat and music; and Miltbotix, a smart sock with in-built physiological sensors developed by Zeke Steer. In the coming months, I will share opportunities for MEMoPAD participants to get involved in this separate study, in case you are interested. Stay tuned!