On a mission to help all people take control of their aging, LiveFreely is a highly innovative company that provides seniors and their caregivers with the necessary tools to be able to proactively age. LiveFreely has been recognized in this issue of Acquisition International as the Leading Innovators in Digital Health Technology Solutions 2020 – USA. We discover more about the company following this latest recognition of its success.
Proactively aging may seem like an odd choice of wording, but taking control of the aging process and not letting it inhibit daily life is something that many people wish they could do. At LiveFreely, this vision has become reality. The company was born from the personal experiences of two brothers taking care of their elderly father and wondering how the process could be made easier. Over the years, the mission has become more refined, but LiveFreely’s core goals have never changed – to help elderly loved ones and those giving care to them gain true peace of mind. What makes the company most successful is their innovative mission and the team’s passion and drive to fulfill an urgent need for technology that improves the lives of seniors.
Each team member has dedicated himself/herself to LiveFreely’s mission of fostering a supportive ecosystem for families, health professionals, and friends, enhancing the security, well-being, and independence of seniors. LiveFreely’s most recent innovation is BUDDY, a versatile and reliable digital health solution that monitors and supports proactive aging. Powered by revolutionary artificial intelligence technology, families and loved ones can now enjoy unprecedented levels of freedom, connectedness, and safety while living life to its fullest.
Through the BUDDY app’s machine learning and artificial intelligence, users can monitor and manage fall prediction, prevention, and detection; medication schedules and reminders; GPS location; and emergency notifications. The platform even alerts smartwatch wearers, family members, caregivers, first responders, and emergency service personnel of irregular health patterns. BUDDY provides a central platform to keep track of health logs, where users and their caregivers can easily view their health history and even share them with their doctors.
The best part about BUDDY is that you can personalize it to your needs by selecting which health categories you want to track. The different categories you can monitor are reminders for medications or vital-sign measurements, falls, GPS boundary alerts for wandering, SOS alerts for immediate help, and code BLUE alerts for cardiac events. What is unique about BUDDY’s fall detection algorithm is its capacity to personalize itself to an individual’s activity and lifestyle, rendering it capable of alerting users when they become a fall risk. BUDDY’s medication reminders are especially innovative in their ease of set-up – just take a picture of your pill bottle and it’s automatically captured and entered. LiveFreely is working on developing even more categories to address specific chronic diseases.
The culture of the company is built around the principle of helping others and serving the community. While BUDDY is initially available on Fitbit smartwatches, more platforms are on the way soon. One of its key benefits is its ability to offer tremendous functionality in a simple and easy-to-use way for seniors. What was once available in very rudimentary forms through several different apps, is now available in one. LiveFreely hopes to especially keep seniors connected while allowing them to maintain their independence and also provide their care community visibility into their wellbeing.
For such a new company, LiveFreely has attracted a diverse team of high caliber talent in all disciplines. From the neurosciences to human engineering and artificial intelligence, the team is functioning on the cutting edge of emerging technology in the digital health space. Perhaps their greatest asset is their ability to bring novel perspectives from their individual specialities and collaborate with each other to innovate synergistic solutions. Characteristic of Silicon Valley start-ups, LiveFreely’s office is dotted with multi-colored bean bags, not just for sitting around, but also as tools of the trade for team members simulating falls.
At the head of LiveFreely is co-founder and CEO, Dr. Arthur Jue. Prior to co-founding the company alongside his brother Daniel, Dr. Jue worked extensively as a serial entrepreneur, corporate executive, educator, and author. Some of the leading companies in the world have benefitted from his expertise, having applied his trade as a senior leader with tech firms such as Oracle, IBM, Hyperion, Tectura, and Twilio. Outside of the technology world, Dr. Jue has also worked as a consultant for health and life sciences companies such as Danaher, Molecular Devices, ForteBio, and McKesson. When his incredibly busy life does leave room for other activities, Dr. Jue is an award-winning independent film producer, serves on a number of boards, performs frequently as a concert violinist, creates artwork, enjoys rock-collecting, Latin dancing, and even martial arts.
Daniel Jue serves as co-founder and CTO of LiveFreely. He has over 20 years of experience in emerging technology and professional software development in companies such as IBM. A self-taught programmer, he wrote his first computer game at the age of 8 on a Radio Shack TRS-80 with only 4k of RAM. Having lived and worked abroad for ten years, he can speak several languages. He has a deep passion for entrepreneurialism and has started several companies in the tech, import/export, and hospitality industries. He loves serving his community and exotic car racing.
The co-founders’ philosophy towards AI is that not only is it pervasive, it is an extension of our human capacity. Arthur and Daniel believe that AI is the next step in advancing elderly care, from not just predicting negative harmful effects, but potentially preventing a host of chronic illnesses. Looking ahead, LiveFreely is hoping to enable caregivers and elderly loved ones to take greater control of aging and increase awareness of the power of AI and technology in empowering a vulnerable community, particularly in the age of COVID-19. Studies are showing that seniors are ready to embrace technology like BUDDY globally. Incorporating real experiences in caregiving, BUDDY is addressing this need in an exciting, novel, and truly disruptive way.
