GeeBot: A Robotic Platform for Refugee Integration

The refugee crisis is one of society's leading challenges. After a journey for survival, refugees and host institutions face barriers that hinder the integration process. To design solutions, we interviewed two groups: host institutions and past refugees. We identified critical issues, from legal concerns, like unfamiliarity of their Refugee Status, to grocery shopping. Our envisioned solution is GeeBot, a low-cost egg-shaped robot that institutions would lend to arriving families for eighteen months. GeeBot will be a translator with teaching functions, an information provider, and an active promoter of interaction between native and refugee populations.