From AAL solution to market success
Technological solutions that enhance quality of life for older adults are at the heart of the AAL Programme. Behind every solution is an AAL project, each of which must travel the journey from prototyping through testing and finally to commercialisation if they are to succeed. The workshops in this theme will explore every step of this journey, looking at common reasons for failure and success, as well as the instruments available that can help transform a good idea into a viable product.
Workshops
AAL living lab within the IBH Network
Tuesday 09.00-10.30
A consortium of several IBH universities are working to build a living lab within the Lake Constance region for the user-centred co-creation, exploration, experimentation and evaluation of active and assisted living within a public-private-people partnership. An infrastructure of 150 households, demo flats, and public showrooms will be assigned to determine and reduce user barriers, technological barriers, network barriers, and market barriers against assistive technologies for older adults in an open-innovation ecosystem. The workshop hopes to receive input from regional stakeholders to establish this project so that it fulfils their practical requirements and corresponds with their care system for older adults.
The presentations from this workshop can be found here.
Guido Kempter (chair)
Petra Friedrich
4th Workshop on mobility solutions – Part 1
Tuesday 09.00-10.30 – http://mobility-workshop.schwartz-stahl.de/
Currently, numerous national and European research projects are investigating various aspects of mobility assistance, and most of them are tailored towards the needs of older adults The 4th workshop on mobility solutions will investigate mobility assistance in a broad scope, considering users with special needs (i.e. physical assistance, accessibility and safety), transitions between transportation modes, and special requirements for indoor environments, such as precise positioning technologies beyond GPS for humans, mobility assistants and socially assistive robots. According to the thematic area, this year’s session will have a special focus on bringing mobility solutions from the idea to the market.
The presentations from this workshop can be found here.
Christoph Stahl (chair)
Eva Nuhn
Bringing AAL innovation to real life: what investors need
Tuesday 09.00-10.30
AAL products and solutions represent a huge potential for growth in the EU market. Their deployment at cross-border level can strengthen the general profit generated by the silver economy. However, the AAL market still needs to find its place in the current social, care and health systems and to position itself in an investment market that is demanding and competitive. This session will provide participants with insights into what investors want and need. They will learn directly from public and private investors about what they look for when meeting an entrepreneur and investing in a new product.
Angelo De Rosa (chair)
AAL for all: multi-stakeholder co-creation session
Tuesday 16.00-17.30
In this interactive session we want to use a multi-stakeholder approach to enhance a technological service solution for older adults through co-creation. This session takes place in the context of the AAL projects ENSAFE (elderly-oriented, network-based services aimed at fostering independent life) and HELICOPTER (healthy lifestyle support through comprehensive tracking of individual and environmental behaviours). Participants will be provided with an in depth status update of the projects, sharing visions and lessons learnt. They will also gain deep insight into the ENSAFE and HELICOPTER journeys, and will actively contribute to idea generation for improving the projects’ systems.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Rens Brankaert (chair)
Marcel de Pender
4th Workshop on mobility solutions – Part 2
Tuesday 16.00-17.30
Currently, numerous national and European research projects are investigating various aspects of mobility assistance, and most of them are tailored towards the needs of older adults The 4th workshop on mobility solutions will investigate mobility assistance in a broad scope, considering users with special needs (i.e. physical assistance, accessibility and safety), transitions between transportation modes, and special requirements for indoor environments, such as precise positioning technologies beyond GPS for humans, mobility assistants and socially assistive robots. According to the thematic area, this year’s session will have a special focus on bringing mobility solutions from the idea to the market.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Christoph Stahl (chair)
Daniel Bieber
Hackathons: a good tool or just a trend?
Tuesday 16.00-17.30
A hackathon is “an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects”. The best ideas are selected and supported through several means. The AAL programme has sponsored some hackathons in 2016 to investigate the usefulness and effectiveness of this instrument for funding innovation. The main objective of this session is to discuss with experts and the winners of AAL sponsored hackathons their impressions on the hackathon as a way to develop new AAL products and ideas.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Marco Carulli (chair)
Living labs: a new chance for user-oriented and sustainable AAL-innovations?
Wednesday 09.00-1030
The FHSG is starting a living lab consisting of 20 households and wants to open up a joint discussion about people’s experiences with this concept. How can living labs be operated to enhance technology acceptance by end users and facilitate earlier market entrance? This structured workshop will attempt to answer these questions through group discussion — using the method of SWOT-analysis — with interested participants. All participants should gain new insights, new ideas and inspiration concerning the topic of the workshop.
Sabina Misoch (chair)
Alain Thielemans
Key avenues and challenges for supporting elderly occupation
Wednesday 09.00-1030
Encouraging, supporting and maintaining occupation amongst older adults should involve all stakeholders and use sustainable means. This session will look at some solutions (combining both the ICT level and the organisational schemes, including business plans) and discuss them within a pitfall-avoidance and best-practise promotion perspective. Experience and knowledge sharing and solution identification will take place during the session.
The presentations from this workshop can be found here.
Pierre Rossel (chair)
How can regions get AAL operational?
Wednesday 14.00-15.30
AAL has been on the European agenda for more than ten years. Although technologies have been developed, pilots executed, discussions about market penetration held, and business models pored over, decision makers are still not seeing the benefits. A step-by-step approach over the next years is needed to bring AAL technologies to the masses. This session will look at successful examples of AAL technologies and services that have found their way into the market and daily life.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Kurt Majcen (chair)
Mike Dorst
A startup accelerator for the AAL Programme
Wednesday 14.00-15.30
The future commercialisation of the results of AAL projects is at the core of their design and development. A number of AAL projects have already been able to bring their results to the market. This workshop will look at past and current AAL projects in order to understand if the current support provided by the programme is enough or whether additional support such as a dedicated accelerator programme would be significantly beneficial. The session will investigate methods used by the FIWARE programme accelerators to support SMEs in bringing innovative ideas for advanced ICT products from R&D results to the market, and how this compares to the support given to AAL projects with such initiatives as AAL2Business.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Michał Kosiedowski (chair)
Paul Pelsmaeker
Your apps and services on the open TAVLA platform
Wednesday 16.00-17.30
TAVLA is a startup based in Cologne formed from the results of the AAL project AALuis. TAVLA aims to improve quality of life for older adults and their families by enabling innovative health and care services at home. Their mission: simplify interaction and communication with family and friends while protecting personal data; enable digital services for health and care at home by creating a sustainable platform; and rethink the development of innovative service apps and open up a new market. Participants will learn about obstacles and routes to market as well as how to develop apps for the open TAVLA platform. A beta phase of the developer programme will be opened. Participants can apply with their ideas and win a TAVLA-Base for the integration of their own apps and services.
The presentations for this workshop can be found here.
Martin Petzold (chair)
Javier Ganzarain