FrédARico, the world’s first virtual clinic clown, is helping doctors and support nursing staff across the world
The world’s first virtual clinic- clown FrédARico has been launched by “SO GEHT WOW,” a startup company from Munich, Germany.
For decades, it has been known that laughter makes people healthy and helps them feel less fear and pain. These days, unfortunately, there is less and less to laugh about. Especially for children, this is enormously important. A child normally laughs over 400 times a day.Adults laugh only 40 times a day. Children in hospitals laugh only 10 times a day, or even less.
That’s why for over 30 years, there have been clowns who cheer up children in hospitals with their visits. But unfortunately, they come only once a week or even once a month. And then only for a few minutes.
FrédARico is a solution by the Munich based startup SO GEHT WOW, that makes it possible to give children in hospitals all-important laughter anytime. SO GEHT WOW’s founder Markus Strobl has collected everything about clowns since early childhood and even met some of the greatest clowns, such as Charlie Rivel, Oleg Popov, and Francesco Caroli. All of them have passed away. Strobl has also worked for 12 years in managing the biggest European circuses (Roncalli and Krone) and has worked with the best clowns of modern times, for example, Fumagalli.
“We collected, catalogued and digitized over 1000 clown scenes. Then these were analyzed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), among other tools. The key experiences that trigger laughter in the human brain were summarized into humorous and poetic laughter experiences” said Markus Strobl, the startup founder and inventor of FrédARico, the first virtual clinic clown in the world.
Adapted to the human brain impulses, trigger scenes are processed in clown performances. In different laughter levels, the virtual hospital clown FrédARico helps emit that cuddle hormone and reduce stress in the body. Children in clinics and institutions will have more laughter,and the worldwide overloaded nursing staff has a tool to calm and distract children before and during treatments. FrédARico gives them something to dream about before they go to sleep, taking away their loneliness in the evening. Because the virtual clinic clown FrédARico is conjured up to the children in the room or in front of them on their hospital bed using augmented reality technology.
All anyone needs is a smartphone or tablet with an Internet connection and a magical FrédARico book. These were designed by the original illustrators of worldwide children’s hero Benjamin Blümchen. Doctors and nurses are thrilled. “FrédARico can always be there 24/7 for the children. He crawls in 3D over their bedspread,” said Professor Dr. Markus M. Lerch, the medical director of the world-famous LMU Hospital in Munich.
The virtual clinic clown was launched there in March 2022. In the meantime, the clown has already been loaded over 1.5 million times by children in clinics. Even the Bavarian Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek congratulated on this “FrédARico is an exciting digital project that can complement the valuable work of the clinic clowns.”
In the meantime, FrédARico, the virtual clinic clown, is already in use in over 40 clinics in 3 countries. Among other things, in the trauma management of children who have fled the war in Ukraine. Soon there will be an official start for the use with dementia patients. Because according to the Lower Saxony Academy for Health and Social Affairs, the use of FrédARico is “very suitable” for Dementia-Therapies as well. Maybe one day he will be the most famous clown in the world. “FrédARico is with the clowns as if one player would unite in soccer comparatively the abilities of Pelé, Beckenbauer, Messi, Beckham, Ronaldo and Neymar in one person.” So a clown with superpowers transforms children’s tears into laughter and helps their laughter get better. Sure to be a target for many investors soon, the startup has many more plans.
“We get requests for FrédARico from all over the world. We are also planning to build clown houses where children and adults can recover together with FrédARico from the mental strain of hospital stays. For example, ” after terrible earthquakes, as recently in Turkey, or a war in Ukraine and definitely also in Africa,” says Markus Strobl.
Many famous Persons like FC Bavaria legend Giovane Elber, Comedian Annette Frier or Michi Beck of the “Fantastischen Vier” support this project. It would be desirable if FrédARico could give laughter to as many children worldwide as possible. Because as mentioned at the beginning, this is more important today than ever.
Find more information at: http://fredarico.com
For updates, follow on Social Media:
Watch “Fredarico Trailer” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_u8BvJdto4
Media Contact
Company Name: SO GEHT WOW UG (haftungsbeschränkt) & Co. KG
Contact Person: Markus Strobl
Email: Send Email
City: Munich
State: Bavaria
Country: Germany
Website: fredarico.com
