IEEE RO-MAN 2026 TAG Workshop

Telepresence Across Generations: Exploring Children’s and Adults’ Needs

2026 August 28th, 13h30-18h JST

Hybrid: Online and Onsite participation possible

Kitakyushu International Conference Center, Kitakyushu, Japan

in the framework of 35th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human
Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2026)

Objectives

This workshop aims to explore the specific characteristics of telepresence interactions for children compared to adults. By bringing together researchers, practitioners, and industry partners, we seek to:

  • Identify the unique needs of children in telepresence scenarios, including cognitive, social, and technical challenges.
  • Compare these needs with those of adults to highlight similarities and differences.
  • Propose research directions and design guidelines to improve telepresence systems for both populations.
  • Foster interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing among participants.

Through presentations and collaborative discussions, we will address key questions such as: How can telepresence robots be adapted to better support children’s interactions? What are the main barriers to effective telepresence for different age groups?

Workshop Organisation

One part of the workshop will be dedicated to several presentations focused on different use cases. A second part of the workshop will be dedicated to a World Café* session, during which participants will discuss the specific needs of children when using telepresence robots, as well as the main similarities and differences between children’s and adults’ telepresence interactions. The final 30 minutes will be devoted to sharing and synthesizing these discussions in order to identify the main lines of inquiry and key research directions for each population.

Your Contribution Matters

To make this workshop as interactive and productive as possible, we invite you to share your ideas and questions that could shape the discussions during the World Café. Please send us:

  • Key questions you would like to address regarding telepresence for children and/or adults.
  • Topics or challenges you believe are critical to explore in this context.

Deadline for submissions: asap and not later then August 15, 2026

Your inputs will be listed here to enable further discussions.

How to submit: email aurelie.clodic@laas.fr with title « IEEE RO-MAN 2026 TAG Workshop »

Talks

Presentation 1 – 14h40 – Providing Internship Opportunities for Students with Special Needs in Japan: The Avatar Robot Café DAWN
Arisa Ema & Celia Spoden, The University of Tokyo
Disabled individuals often have fewer choices regarding work and planning their future – yet recently telepresence or avatar robots have been implemented to provide new opportunities for social participation and work. We draw on our case study from Japan and ask what needs adults and students operating avatar robots have, in order to empower them through telepresence technologies and foster inclusion.
In 2021, the Ory Laboratory Inc. opened the Avatar Robot Café DAWN ver.β in Tokyo, where people with difficulties leaving their homes for different reasons, use the robot OriHime as an alter ego to remotely serve the customers in the café from their homes. Since 2022, the Ory Laboratory Inc. has also been hosting a Caravan Café once or twice a year in various cities across Japan. As part of this initiative, they partner with special needs schools and offer an internship program for the students. The aim of the internship program is to provide disabled students with the opportunity of first working experience through the avatar robots and expand their future employment opportunities.
During the six-day long internship the students undergo training from experienced OriHime pilots on how to operate the robot and serve customers, before they serve their first guests accompanied by their mentors. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the café and interviews with the students, their parents, teachers, OriHime mentors, café customers, and local government officials, we will present the challenges faced by the participants, and how the internship connects disabled students with society, and fosters personal growth. Focusing on the motivation to participate in the program, we will illustrate their concerns and hopes, as well as their experiences with the program. We conclude by comparing the needs and experiences of disabled students and their mentors in telepresence work scenarios, contributing to broader debates on inclusive technology.

Presentation 2 -15h20 – Beyond the bedside: how telepresence robots foster empowerment, family bonds, and education for hospitalized patients
Jérémie Koessler, Awabot Company
Telepresence robotics has evolved from a niche technological novelty into a vital lifeline for individuals facing prolonged medical isolation. This presentation shares comprehensive feedback and user experiences gathered across diverse deployment contexts, highlighting how robotic presence transcends physical barriers for both children and adults. We examine three distinct axes of impact:
* Patient empowerment and escape through Sports and Events: Drawing from initiatives like the FC Barcelona Foundation study and premium sporting events, we analyze how controlling a robot in high-profile settings shifts a sick child’s status from a passive patient to an active, celebrated VIP. Feedback such as « It feels so good to be outside » underscores the profound psychological benefits of immersive, joyful escapism and psychological empowerment.
* Sustaining family bonds: Through the lens of the VIK-e program, we explore two intimate use cases. First, we look at children in sterile isolation rooms using robots placed at home to maintain a daily, natural link with parents and siblings. Second, we reverse the perspective by examining long-term hospitalized parents at Lyon Sud Hospital using telepresence to regain their active role in their children’s daily lives.
* Educational Inclusion: Finally, we present insights from the TED-i program—a world-first initiative by the French Ministry of National Education. With nearly 2,000 robots deployed, this project illustrates how large-scale institutional support allows homebound or hospitalized students to maintain academic continuity and, crucially, keep their social standing among peers and teachers.
By weaving together these diverse use cases, this presentation illustrates that regardless of the scale—from a single afternoon at a tennis tournament to a nationwide educational framework—the true value of telepresence robots lies not in the hardware, but in their capacity to restore dignity, drive user empowerment, and sustain cross-generational human connection.

Presentation 3 – 16h50 – Towards Accessible Telepresence
Jenifer Rode, University College London
Telepresence was designed primarily with offices and adults without disabilities in mind, and yet one of the most promising uses of telepresence is for connecting with people with disabilities. In this talk, I review my experience as a disabled user of telepresence robots for over a decade, and how the telepresence robot did not fix me or make my disability palatable to an able-bodied majority, rather it allowed me to make conscious trade-offs between the affordances of my corporeal body and an emergent cyborg-self in the context of my disability. I also review lab-based studies of children using telepresence, and ethnographic studies of graduate students with and without disabilities using robots in a real-world deployments. Finally, I discuss an interview study with faith leaders regarding telepresence robots as a means for disabled people, elders, and people in the final stages of life as a way of continuing to connect. Through all of this, I discuss the importance of telepresence to ensure agency, transformation, and what a truly accessible telepresence robot might be.

Speakers

Prof. Arisa Ema, University of Tokyo
https://sites.google.com/g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ema/home_en?authuser=0
Arisa Ema is an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan. She is a researcher in Science and Technology Studies (STS), and her primary interest is to investigate the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence and avatar robots by organizing an interdisciplinary research group. She is also a member of the Council for Social Principles of Human-centric AI, The Cabinet Office, which released “Social Principles of Human-Centric AI” in 2019, and also a member of the Japanese government’s AI Strategy Council launched in May 2023.

Dr. Celia Spoden, University of Tokyo
Celia Spoden is a Project Researcher at the University of Tokyo in Japan. Her research bridges medical anthropology, bioethics, and science and technology studies from a cross-cultural perspective. In her current project, she investigates how digital technologies can be employed to overcome loneliness and social isolation, and foster social participation among people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. Together with Arisa Ema, she explored how avatar robots in German and Japanese schools provide the opportunity for students unable to attend classes in person — due to illness or disability — to stay part of the class community, as published in their comparative study “Staying Connected: Implementing Avatar Robots at Schools in Germany and Japan.” Frontiers in Digital Health–Digital Mental Health 2024:6.

Prof. Jennifer A. Rode , University College London
https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/17164-jennifer-a-rode
Dr. Jennifer A. Rode is a Professor of Equity and Human Computer Interaction in University College London’s Culture, Communication, and Media Department. Her research bridges the fields of accessibility, robotics, disability studies, human-computer interaction, and critical computing to ensure equity for people with disabilities. She earned her B.S. and Master of HCI from Carnegie Mellon University and a Ph.D. in Informatics from the University of California, Irvine. She has over a100 publications in conference venues, including CHI, CSCW, DIS, SOUPS, and Ubicomp, and journals such as Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Interacting with Computers, and Learning Media and Technology. Rode has pioneered research on the importance of gender differences in virtual reality, co-authored the foundational paper establishing that racial bias is embedded into technology, and invented the ClosetClique smart closet and the SewSimple. She has served in various leadership roles, including Associate Chair and Accessibility Chair for CHI, CSCW, and Ubicomp, and is the founding co-chair of AccessSIGCHI, an advocacy network of disabled scholars in HCI, which aims to influence accessibility policy across the ACM. She has received best paper awards from Ubicomp and the Cambridge Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology and two best paper nominee awards at CHI. She received a United States National Science Foundation Career Award, and is a Distinguished Scholar of the ACM. Rode is deeply committed to exploring sources of implicit bias embedded in technology as the starting point for more equitable technology design.

Jérémie Koessler, Awabot Company
https://awabot.com/en/
Jérémie Koessler is the CEO of Awabot, a world leader in telepresence robotics specializing in remote-presence solutions that prioritize mobility and embodiment. An engineer by training, he joined Awabot at its inception in 2012, scaling the company from an R&D center to a commercial business. Under his leadership, Awabot enables nearly 200,000 users worldwide to interact naturally in professional, educational, and event spaces. Committed to social inclusion and patient empowerment, Jérémie orchestrates major global partnerships, including the TED-i program with the French Ministry of Education (the world’s largest telepresence deployment) and initiatives with major sports organizations (F1, UEFA, NBA) to connect vulnerable audiences to prestigious worldwide events.

Schedule

14:00-14:10 Workshop Presentation and Ice-Breaking
14:10-14:40 World Café session 1
14:40-15:20 Presentation 1 Prof. Arisa Ema, University of Tokyo and Dr. Celia Spoden, University of Tokyo
15:20-16:00 Presentation 2 Jérémie Koessler, Awabot Company
16:00-16:20 Coffee Break
16:20-16:50 World Café session 2
16:50-17:30 Presentation 3 Prof. Jennifer A. Rode , University College London
17:30-18:00 World Café session 3
18:00-18:20 Debrief & Next Steps Discussion

Organisers

Venue, Accommodations, and Registration

The workshop is held as part of RO-MAN 2026. Details about the venue, accommodations, and registration can be found in the main RO-MAN conference website. 

Contact

Feel free to mail aurelie.clodic@laas.fr