Invitation for workshop participation on June 7th, 2011, 10h30-17h30

Support for companies developing Ambient Assisted Living solutions
to achieve the market breakthrough

Albert Borschette Conference Centre, Rue Froissart 36, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

  
AGENDA

Registration to the workshop has now closed but you can follow it online.
 

A workshop organized by AALOA [1] and eInclusion [2] and supported by AALA [3]

The goals of the workshop are to:

• Indentify technical areas where – in the view of the participants – provision of common approaches or technical solutions would lead to faster, cheaper or more flexible product development.

• Provide information about on-going activities in this area supported by the European Commission and AALA

• Discuss the form and content of possible new funding measures from the European Commission and AALA aimed at involving companies in practical experimentation with new technologies currently under development, and offering them the opportunity to influence this work to match their needs.

The underlying motivation for the workshop is the potential for significant economic and social impact from the introduction – on a wide scale – of innovative AAL solutions. While this potential has been recognized for some time, breakthroughs in terms of widespread availability and deployment of solutions have yet to be achieved. The EU and AALA have funded activities in this area for some years, and some of these are now at a stage in their development where direct hands-on involvement of development companies is the best way to make sure that this work produces results that are effective and applicable in real industrial settings.

The workshop is organised by AALOA and European Commission – eInclusion, and supported by AALA:

AAL Open Association – AALOA is serving as an open meeting point for various projects, individuals, and organizations to form an AAL community with broad involvement from all types of stakeholders like technology providers, service providers and research institutions involved in AAL. AALOA is intended as an invitation to join the mission of bringing together the resources, tools and people involved in AAL within a single forum, making it much easier to reach conclusions on provisions needed to design, develop, evaluate and standardize an open common service platform for AAL.

European Commission – eInclusion: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play an essential role in supporting daily life in today's digital society. They are used at work, to stay in touch with family, to deal with public services as well as to take part in culture, entertainment, leisure and political dialogues. The Commission proposes a series of measures to promote take-up of digital technologies by potentially disadvantaged groups, such as elderly, less-literate, and low-income persons. Improving access for people with disabilities as well as tackling demographic ageing with the help of ICT for a better quality of life for the elderly, reduced cost of care, and business opportunities in the "silver economy" are important parts of the eInclusion agenda.

AAL Association – AALA: The AAL Association is an international not-for-profit association with the involvement of many EU member states that implements the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme. Its objective is to enhance the quality of life of older people and strengthen the industrial base in Europe through the use of ICT. The motivation of the new funding activity is in the demographic change and ageing in Europe, which implies not only challenges but also opportunities for the citizens, the social and healthcare systems as well as industry and the European market.

[1] The Ambient Assisted Living Open Association.
[2] Short for the ICT for Inclusion sector of the DG for Information Society and Media of the European Commission.
[3] The Ambient Assisted Living Association.
[4] Short for UNIVERsal open platform and reference Specification for Ambient Assisted Living under the grant agreement no. 247950.