Vivian Chu

Vivian Chu is the cofounder and chief technology officer of Diligent Robotics, a company that has raised nearly $50 million to develop socially intelligent robots for use in hospitals. Its flagship product is Moxi, a robot that performs delivery tasks for nurses. Having decided software engineering wasn’t for her, Chu got into robotics when she realized she could make things that could change one’s living and working environment; her health care focus came from watching her grandparents age and go into a nursing home, which showed her where such technology could have a big impact. She says her work is not about taking away jobs, but rather taking away the parts of jobs that nurses hate doing, enabling them to “spend more time with their patients or just have a moment to breathe.”