Yukan — Personalized Comic Books for Hospitalized Children
Turn a child’s medical journey into a personalized comic book.
Yukan is a product from imec.AI-labs that transforms a child’s medical experience into a warm, personalized story. Instead of confronting frightening procedures head-on, children discover them gently — as a comic book adventure in which they are the hero.
Yukan is not just an idea: it is live and currently being tested by physicians, and available at hospital-books.imecai.com.
What Yukan does
Yukan turns diagnoses, exams, and treatments into child-friendly webtoons and comic books tailored to each child.
- Create a webtoon from a storyline — and, in the near future, directly from a medical report.
- Ready-made, child-friendly themes — explaining a diagnosis, an MRI, a cast, and more.
- Explains scary procedures gently, as a story starring the child themselves.
- Live and currently tested by physicians in real clinical settings.
Objectives
Yukan’s goal is to make the hospital experience less frightening and more empowering for children, while giving clinicians and families a simple tool to explain medical journeys.
- Reduce fear and anxiety around medical procedures for young patients.
- Support patient education and engagement with clear, personalized stories.
- Help physicians and families communicate difficult concepts in an age-appropriate way.
- Start in pediatrics as a beachhead, with a clear intent to grow into other areas such as oncology and rare diseases.
A complete Yukan book
One child, one story — from playground to hospital, start to finish.
Another Yukan book — an MRI journey
A different child, a different procedure — Yukan adapts the whole story.
Example books
Real Yukan stories, ready to read. Click a cover to open the full book.
Leo's MRI Journey
A little boy and his family turn a scary MRI into a gentle adventure.
Open book (PDF)
Getting an IV Line
Nurse Tom kindly guides a child, step by step, through placing an IV line.
Open book (PDF)
My Abdominal Ultrasound
A child and their papa explain why an empty tummy makes the clearest pictures.
Open book (PDF)Foundations and partnerships
Yukan is strongly anchored in the multi-agent AI architectures and infrastructure developed at imec.AI-labs. A concrete, societal product — and a bonus win for imec.
- Ongoing discussions with potential partners, including the UZ Leuven Institute for Rare Diseases.
- Living its own life — actively seeking collaborators and investors.
Get involved
Yukan is looking for collaborators and investors to help bring personalized, comforting stories to more children in more hospitals.
Explore the product: hospital-books.imecai.com