Meet Fransje van Oost
Various paths have led to Mentech Innovation. Some discovered Mentech while still studying, during their degree’s internship and others were attracted by the values of Mentech. Fransje was introduced with Mentech through an article she read where Severinus, a care organization for people with an intellectual disability in Veldhoven, announced that they were going to collaborate with Mentech to develop an emotion detection tool for clients with misunderstood behavior. The HUME project and its values to improve the quality of life of vulnerable people caught her immediate attention. Not only in a professional interest, but also in a personal way. Fransje’s eldest daughter has an intellectual disability and lives in a care organization. Shortly after reading the article, she became part of the Mentech family.
Fransje received a Master degree after her Biomedical Sciences studies in the University of Leiden and she is the team leader of the ROSA team within Mentech. The ROSA team is responsible for the pilot study within the care organizations. She is in close contact with these care organizations and sets and supervises the guidelines. Fransje organizes community meetings with all the partners of the pilot study. For the development of the HUME, she works closely with the Data Science Team. A strong collaboration between both teams is important for the HUME to succeed.
Her added value is that she has a good view on the needs of care professionals and close relatives for tools to gain more insight into the emotions of people with a intellectual disability. Next tot that, she plays an important role in designing tools to better understand the emotions of vulnerable people. Her biomedical background helps to understand which physiological processes are most important and useful in the development of an emotion detection tool.
During the measurements in a care organization, her work can be a lot of fun. It sometimes seems that the ROSA team members are undercover agents during a secret mission. They often have to be invisible to prevent influence on the measurements, since some clients may react on their presence (in a positive or negative way).
What motivates Fransje day to day is knowing that with her work at Mentech she can achieve improvement of care for her daughter and many others like her. ‘’With the HUME we will have more insight in the emotional status, which will prevent misunderstood behavior in the future. This will increase the happiness for those who are not capable to express their feelings, and not insignificant, the caregiver’s happiness as well.”