Hospitals are among the most complex logistics environments in the world. Thousands of medications, meals, linens, supplies, and pieces of equipment must move through crowded buildings every day, often using manual processes, walkie-talkies, spreadsheets, and staff pushing carts between departments.
Steve Pinto, CEO of CTRL Robotics, joins Greg to explore how purpose-built robots can improve the internal movement of hospital supplies while giving healthcare workers more time to focus on patients.
Steve’s path into robotics began with entrepreneurship, augmented reality, virtual reality, and enterprise software. A project deploying service robots at South Africa’s Hotel Sky exposed him to the enormous gap between impressive robotics demonstrations and systems that can operate reliably in real environments. That experience led him and his co-founder to launch CTRL Robotics.
Today, the company is focused on building the hardware, software, digital twins, and infrastructure required to automate hospital logistics from the ground up.
In this conversation, Greg and Steve explore:
- Steve’s journey from growing up around tools and family businesses in South Africa to building AR, VR, software, and robotics companies
- How a hotel robotics deployment revealed the limitations of existing robots, integrations, APIs, and elevator control systems
- Why CTRL Robotics narrowed its focus to healthcare after working across multiple industries and global markets
- The hidden scale of hospital logistics, including the meals, medications, linens, waste, equipment, and supplies required to support hundreds or thousands of patients
- Why Steve compares a hospital to an Amazon fulfillment center with significantly more people, greater complexity, and no ability to stop operations
- The bottom-up approach to healthcare automation, focused on moving everyday items rather than developing surgical or diagnostic systems
- Why hospital corridors are well suited to mobile robots, even though most carts and equipment still need to be pushed manually
- How robots can support hospital employees rather than replace them by removing repetitive, physically demanding, and low-value tasks
- Why CTRL Robotics describes its machines as “time machines” that give skilled employees more time for meaningful work
- The “full bucket” problem that can leave patients waiting hours for medication that has already been prepared
- How robotic deliveries have reduced medication transport times from several hours to as little as seven to nine minutes
- Why restaurant and warehouse robots cannot simply be repurposed for hospitals without major changes to safety, navigation, security, and payload handling
- The challenge of navigating crowded, constantly changing hospital corridors filled with patients, beds, wheelchairs, spills, carts, and emergency activity
- How CTRL Robotics uses digital twins and elevator integrations to coordinate deliveries across multiple hospital floors
- Why dedicating certain elevators to robots could reduce waiting times and dramatically improve the movement of both people and supplies
- How private and public healthcare systems differ in their ability to evaluate and adopt new technologies
- Why labor shortages drive hospital automation in the United States, while efficiency, skills gaps, and concerns about job displacement shape adoption elsewhere
- CTRL Robotics’ effort to make deployments economically accessible, with robots operating at an estimated cost of roughly four dollars per hour
- How the company’s seed funding is supporting localized manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and a small-scale production facility in Florida
- Why Steve believes robotics companies should locate themselves close to customers, manufacturing talent, suppliers, and affordable operating infrastructure
- The advantages of Florida’s Space Coast for building physical products, extending runway, and supporting healthcare customers
- CTRL Robotics’ long-term goal of completing one million hospital deliveries every day
- Why Steve believes humanoids are currently overhyped, while narrow machines that perform one task reliably remain underappreciated
- The importance of empathy and patient-centered design when introducing robotics into healthcare environments
- Why culture fit, adaptability, commitment, and independence often matter more than credentials when hiring an early-stage robotics team
- Steve’s hardest-earned founder lesson: stop protecting the idea, accept failure quickly, and move forward with confidence
For robotics founders, healthcare leaders, and anyone interested in the infrastructure behind patient care, this conversation offers a detailed look at how reliable mobile robots could help hospitals move faster, support overstretched teams, and deliver better care.
Learn more about CTRL Robotics: https://ctrlrobotics.com/
Connect with Steve Pinto on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpinto7/
Connect with Greg Toroosian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregtoroosian/
