Summaries of the Projects aal-2009-2 (ict based solutions for Advancement of Social Interaction of Elderly People)

AAL-2009-2-135

Ageing in place is increasingly emphasised as a preferable alternative to institutional care. Although approaches of building-up support structures and social capital in neighbourhoods for elder citizens are pivotal for their daily conduct of life, social interactions beyond the near environment seem to be equally important, e.g. with remotely living family members and friends. The diversity of needs and preferences of social interactions given the varying surrounding social, historically-grown circumstances even amplifies seen from a European stance in the context of different nations. This clearly points to an opportunity for technological solutions to support independent living and social interactions from a “diversity of life worlds” perspective. Therefore the mission of the FoSIBLE project is twofold: (1) The development of an innovative social media platform which opens up the homes of elder people into an innovative social interaction space which is to access, to use and to control intuitively for people being not familiar with new media. (2) The development of innovative methodologies for user-centered and practice-based ICT design to successfully address the needs of the European ageing society in relation to social interaction, social inclusion, and social support. The integration of Smart Home and Living Lab research and development practice as well as the deep integration of primary, secondary and tertiary end users will be the fundamental basis. The involvement of partners from France, Germany and the Netherlands guarantees a comprehension of a wide broadband of backgrounds of end users. The centre of the research is a TV-based Social Media Center which enables new ways of communication and social interaction in the context of the television infrastructure, using entertainment consoles, media center technologies and innovative I/O-devices, such as intelligent furniture.

Project duration: 36 months Web site: http://fosible.eu

Involved countries/national agencies: DE, FR, AT

Total project cost: € 2,98 million Grant € 2,1 million EC contribution € 0,8 million

Go-myLife

AAL-2009-2-089

In our increasingly dislocated and mobile society, online social network (OSN) sites are proving valuable in bridging distances and facilitating interaction and communications. People are spending a significant amount of time at the top social network websites in order to manage existing relationships with friends, reconnect with old friends, share media and find new contacts that have similar interests. Fulfilling these needs is just as important for elderly people as it is for everyone else, but for many reasons can become increasingly difficult. In spite of this need for social contact, elderly people, even confident internet users, tend to miss out on the benefits of OSN platforms. Go-myLife is intended to address this need. Conventional OSNs were started with young people in mind and have only slowly expanded to include older demographics. Their culture can therefore seem alien and inaccessible to elderly people. Go-myLife will therefore provide an OSN platform built around the needs of elderly people. On the other hand, elderly people are keen to maintain contact with the different generations of their family and to contribute to mainstream discussion and debate. Go-myLife will therefore not be a separate OSN for elderly people but rather a platform, fully integrated with existing OSNs, from where elderly people can post messages and receive updates and take part in discussions across a variety of other OSNs, thus bringing existing communities together. Elderly people need to be supported while they are out and about and given reasons to leave the seeming security of their home. Go-myLife will therefore be designed as a mobile OSN platform, optimized for access via a Smartphone. It will capitalize on the GPS, compass and accelerometer functions of modern Smartphones to provide access to context-aware services so that users can be alerted when friends or family members are close by, to facilitate opportunistic face to face social contact.

Project duration: 30 months Web site: http://gomylife-project.eu

Involved countries/national agencies: ES (MiTYC), UK, GR, AT, PL

Total project cost: € 2,47 million Grant € 1,5 million EC contribution € 0,58 million

HELASCoL

AAL-2009-2-085

This proposal aims at bringing services to the elderly people’s preferred technological platform, the television, and helping them to be active members of Digital Society, living an active and meaningful life connected to their surroundings, families, friends and neighbours. The „Helping elders to live an active and socially connected life by involving them in the digital society” project addresses the objectives of the call by offering a 360 degree user involvement methodology to examine how can a new approach towards digital technologies can be harnessed to support the involvement of elderly people in digital society. This will ensure that the project result addresses relevant user needs and has a viable market potential. Among the specific objectives of the project are: creating an intuitive and easy to use Graphical and Multi-modal User Interface that can be applied to television screens, mobile phone screens and computer screens; developing a service delivery platform based on open standards and existing, innovative yet ready-to-use state-of-the-art technology and frameworks, which enables 3rd party service developers to provide services for the end users; integrating basic home automation and smart home functions that can be managed by the elders and also monitored by their relatives; and developing service packages based on 5 pillars: - Pillar I: communication (chat, video chat, bulletin boards, photo sharing, etc) - Pillar II: entertainment (mind training games, elderly social network, etc) - Pillar III: accessibility (voice recognition, reading out loud, smart home control, etc) - Pillar IV: active lifestyle and health keeping (video fitness coaching, etc) - Pillar V: Energy efficiency and smart energy management.

Project duration: 23 months Web site:

Involved countries/national agencies: HU, PT, CH

Total project cost: € 1,67 million Grant € 0,93 million EC contribution € 0,37 million

HOMEdotOLD

AAL-2009-2-130

The HOMEdotOLD project aims to provide a TV-based platform with cost-effective services that will be delivered in a highly personalised and intuitive way and will advance the social interaction of elderly people, aiming at improving the quality and joy of their home life, bridging distances and reinforcing social voluntariness and activation, thus preventing isolation and loneliness. HOMEdotOLD will deliver and open platform for services advancing the social interaction of elderly people and within the project the focus will be on the development of the following 2 main categories of services: - Personal motivation services, i.e. services for staying socially active, preventing loneliness and isolation, enabling voluntariness, motivation and actuation: This service category will include services allowing the elderly to perform meaningful activities that are useful and satisfactory for the society and themselves and create new living experiences. - Social networking services: i.e. services for bridging distances and supporting existing roles: This service category will include services allowing elderly living far away from their families and close friends to keep in touch with them and support existing roles. HOMEdotOLD will be based on the innovative service platform developed in the context of the INHOME (IST-45061) R&D project, which is already used for the provision of services for people suffering from the Alzheimer Disease in the context of AAL, and on the Philips NET TV platform. The HOMEdotOLD platform’s architecture constitutes a pragmatic approach since the main human machine interface is the TVSet/STB allowing the multimodal interaction (TTS and SR and navigation with the remote control) between the services and the elderly, low-cost off-the-self equipment is required and the services reside at an external Application Server.

Project duration: 24 months Web site: www.homedotold.eu

Involved countries/national agencies: GR, AT, NL, DE

Total project cost: € 3,27 million Grant € 1,8 million EC contribution € 0,7 million

AAL-2009-2-031

The HOPES project aims at developing an intelligent multimedia platform providing innovative social e-services for European elderly persons and their social entourage. Through this platform, HOPES will create the first European network dedicated to social interactions of the elderly and self-animated by its adherents. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance socialisation, quality of life and autonomy of elderly persons by preventing isolation and loneliness, and generating positive social experiences and behaviour. Taking into account user requirements, expectations and social experiences, HOPES will integrate a range of ICT-based solutions for i) managing existing e-information by exhaustive search of existing information (Web and databases crawling) and intelligent structuring (TextMining) in the HOPES repository, ii) transforming selected information into personalised solutions and iii) providing validated solutions as “e-Social Best Practices” (SBP). This stepwise process represents the “HOPES virtuous circle” for transforming raw data into knowledge (SBP). The SBP will be provided to HOPES end users together with recommendations about how and when they can be best used during the elderly person’s daily life (“personal social calendar”). The social pertinence and quality of the proposed HOPES SBP will be guaranteed through a validation process based on the Web 2.0 strategy (by and for end users) and following the “Evidence-Based Medicine” (EBM) method. Cooperation technology will ensure user-friendly interactivity, personalisation, practical accessibility and usability of the HOPES platform, ICT solutions and content. The technology will support interoperability and multiple roles as content user and provider, semantic technologies for semantic similarity reasoning and routing, human – system interfaces adapted to the elderly and a single but multilingual access point to share HOPES SBP all over Europe.

Project duration: 30 months Web site:

Involved countries/national agencies: FR, UK, DE, IT,

Total project cost: € 5,15 million Grant € 2,6 million EC contribution € 1,2 million

AAL-2009-2-065

Helping people to escape from social isolation is a major issue in elderly care. Activities offered by social services do often not reach them. There are several reasons for this: social deprivation, low self-esteem or physical inability. Social isolation and health are closely related and may lead to a variety of physical disorders and even depression. The project aims at providing the methodology and the technologies for elderly persons to participate in social activities and have fun via digital media. Our main target group are those who are most threatened by isolation spending most of their time at home all by themselves. Join-in will assess possibilities counteracting isolation and find out whether these are the same in the different participating countries. The project will create an environment that lets elderly people socialise, play (social) computer games and exercise (exergames) either on a PC or on a TV using a low-cost set-top box. Multiplayer video gaming is seen as a key activity for attracting senior citizens to the network. Its positive effect is well proven and it enables socialising with other generations, e.g. the grandchildren. The use of the TV with a customisable set-top box ensures that persons will not even have to get acquainted with a new technology. The project will develop a set-top box based on Free Open Source Software; adapt video games to meet the special needs of the elderly; and customise access facilities such as controllers which take into account the constraints of senior citizens. Physical activity sessions will be offered and the need and acceptance of exergames evaluated. The benefits of regular exercise have been confirmed by several studies: The effects of the various activities will be thoroughly evaluated concerning acceptance, implications on the individual, socio-economic effects and business opportunities. User groups will be involved in Germany, Norway, Hungary and Ireland. A pilot implementation is scheduled.

Project duration: 36 months Web site:

Involved countries/national agencies: DE, HU, NO, IE, FI,

Total project cost: € 4,1 million Grant € 2,0 million EC contribution € 0,8 million

M3W

AAL-2009-2-109

Change of mental abilities is normal. People over 65 and especially over 80 are typically affected. To recognize if normal deterioration turns into mental disorder is not easy for specialists, even less for relatives or friends. Playing games and solving puzzles are popular tools for keeping the mind fresh. There are many websites with on-line games, but only few are designed for the elderly as far as content, ergonomics, psychology, abilities, etc. are concerned Also, an increasing number of websites are available for the 50+, 60+ and older but they rarely offer on-line games. Finally, some websites address mental hygiene, freshness and disorders, but rarely offer computerized games or build multicultural communities. A striking difference between traditional and computerized games is that the latter are able to collect behavioural data in order to measure mental (and to some extent: motoric) abilities and especially their changes over time. However, “measuring is knowing”: if we can measure states and especially state changes in a scientifically sound way and a strictly controlled environment then we can provide better and more timely help for the elderly and their families. Our goal is to measure and visualize mental tendencies in an entertaining way, and give warnings or in certain cases alarms that it is advisable to visit a physician. Our ambition is to compare one's mental wellness to his/her own past mental conditions. Our objectives are the followings: a) An entertaining mental wellness toolset (MWT) for self-use to provide maintenance as well as measurement facilities for elderly persons' mental and motoric condition in order to detect changes and tendencies; b) A scientifically sound methodology, suitable for clinical validation, for the above measurement and the evaluation of measurement data; c) A multinational/multicultural mental wellness community, backed with a multilingual website, offering the MWT, consultancy services, forums, etc.

Project duration: 36 months Involved countries/national agencies: HU, DK, IL, GR, ES, FR

AAL-2009-2-131

The Nostalgia Bits project aims to provide a platform where tangible artifacts of an elderly person’s life experience can be uploaded to a web site and become a significant resource for use by other generations, and a means for connecting the elderly users with members of own generation. The user base is expected to go beyond the elderly user and their families, to include peer group members whose life experiences and memories intersect and extend to community elements such as schools and colleges. This will allow elderly users to combat feelings of isolation, and low self esteem; by connecting them with family; lost friends (and their families) and peers; and allowing them to contribute to their community by tapping the enormous wealth of knowledge and experience they hold within themselves.

Project duration: 24 months Web site: https://nobits.basecamphq.com

Involved countries/national agencies: HU, DE, CH, IT, IL, GR

Total project cost: € 3,0 million Grant € 1,9 million EC contribution € 0,6 million

PaeLife

AAL-2009-2-068

The PaeLIFE focuses on individuals who are recently retired and who are used to some level of technology usage and who want to keep themselves active, productive and socially engaged. The project’s main goal is to empower these elderly users with a Personal (Virtual) Life Assistant (PLA), a virtual presence who supports social communication, learning and entertainment, fighting isolation and exclusion and thus allowing them to be more productive, independent and to have a more social and fulfilling life. The Personal Life Assistant, whose requirements and system specifications will be captured (WP1), will mediate and facilitate the interaction of these senior citizens, with standard computers, game consoles, mobile devices (cell phone) and home automation modules and will be specially oriented to enable access to existing services in the web, such as interactive online courses and social and entertainment networks. New services will be also developed: a virtual consultant service, allowing the person to keep contributing to society with their life-long experience and the “nanny space”, enabling the person to interact with his grandchildren and family (WP5). All this will be made possible at people’s homes, since elderly people have sometimes some level of impairments caused by age, which reduce their mobility. One of the novelties of this project is the enhanced way of interaction with the computer, with high-quality technology and multimodal interfaces (WP4). Speech, as the easiest and most natural modality for human-human and human-computer interaction (HCI), will be used as the main modality for interaction with the PLA.

Project duration: 24 months Involved countries/national agencies: PT, ES, PL, NL

AAL-2009-2-137

The main objectives of the PeerAssist project are the conceptualisation, design, implementation and demonstration of a flexible end-to-end Peer-to-Peer platform, which allows elderly people (not familiar with information technology) to build virtual communities dynamically, based on interests and needs they share. The PeerAssist platform facilitates establishing on demand ad-hoc communities including friends, family, neighbours, volunteers, service providers, etc. The community building process and the P2P interaction is achieved using information extracted from peer roles, profiles and user models, context describing the overall user environment, and is driven by a specific elder user request for service. The request is first represented semantically and then routed through the P2P network in order to find semantically matching peers and services. PeerAssist can support a wide range of useful applications including (but not limited to): (i) peer-driven organization of social activities (such as going out, going to the movies, exchanging books, organizing a social gathering, etc.); (ii) soliciting peer help with housekeeping activities; (iii) allowing support organizations to “push” relevant content to interested elderly users; (iii) allowing caregivers and family members to receive alerts if certain periodic activities of elderly users are interrupted; (iv) responding to emergency situations that call for an immediate action.

Project duration: 30 months web site: www.cnl.di.uoa.gr/peerassist/

Involved countries/national agencies: GR, AT, ES (MiTYC), ES (ISCIII)

Total project cost: € 2,15 million Grant € 1,46 million EC contribution € 0,57 million

AAL-2009-2-090

The goal in project SENIORCHANNEL is to build on advances in information and communication technologies to develop an innovative, easy to use solution for addressing the problem of the isolation of elderly people who may find themselves prohibited in their ability to socialise and interact in the community for a number of reasons such as physical, psychological, psycho-social or cultural. Furthermore, SENIORCHANNEL will give elderly care professionals with an innovative approach to developing and managing the specific social needs of the elderly in the wider community. SENIORCHANNEL will also provide new business opportunities through direct access to a growing sector in the market.

Project duration: 36 months Web site: http://innovation-labs.com/seniorchannel

Involved countries/national agencies: ES (MiTYC), IT, FR, SE

Total project cost: € 4,87 million Grant € 2,35 million EC contribution € 0,92 million

Seniorengage

AAL-2009-2-004

The ageing of the population is one of the significant transformations being experienced in European societies and one of the major social policy issues facing families, governments and communities. The evaluation of current demographic data regarding the ageing of population imposes a reconsideration of some key concepts which are not merely political or sociological: age-war and clash of generations concern not only economic and social parameters but also culture and mentality issues, which are usually to be dealt at a national or even regional level. Senior citizens, upon retirement from their working lives, often experience a tremendous sense of loss and social exclusion. Given the rapidly ageing European population – with more and more older adults retiring and slipping into a sedentary and solitary lifestyle – this issue urgently needs to be addressed. The commercial objective of the project is to offer a web-based learning system especially adapted for senior citizens, in a relatively short time (less than 5 years). The platform will represent a virtual environment where senior citizens (retired professionals) can, on the one hand learn, and on the other hand, be connected to others, offering their expertise and continuing to actively participate in their profession, for a mutually beneficial educational and social exchange. SENIORENGAGE will improve the quality of life of retired and semi-retired seniors by providing them with an outlet for sharing their professional knowledge and allowing them to continue to feel active and useful in their field. While senior professionals may feel physically disconnected from their profession as they no longer work in an office setting and therefore no longer enjoy the camaraderie and companionship of colleagues, SENIORENGAGE users will be able to regain similar social relationships regardless of the fact that they are no longer a part of the job force.

Project duration: 24 months Web site:

Involved countries/national agencies: ES (MiTYC), HU, AT, FI, UK

Total project cost: € 1,3 million Grant € 0,88 million EC contribution € 0,34 million

SilverGame

AAL-2009-2-113

The project SilverGame aims to realise and provide attractive and stimulating game-based multimedia applications that foster the social connection and interaction of elderly people with the society. The European silver gaming platform draws on a new approach, combining stimulation of human senses via entertainment-based interaction and web based information services. Social relationships and new contacts through virtual entertainment and interaction within and across communities will be initiated. Therefore the multimedia environment provides intuitive interfaces for multimodal user input and navigation, attractive sensor-based serious gaming applications and additional web based information services. The hypothesis of the project is that – due to the sharing of the same “virtual” hobbies and passions, such as singing (module B), driving (module A), or dancing (module C) – virtual contacts will lead to real social interactions and inclusion. Moreover, web-based information services will be brought to socially isolated and lonely persons, helping them to be active and joyful in their daily life.

Project duration: 26 months Web site: www.silvergame.eu

Involved countries/national agencies: DE, FI, AT, UK

Total project cost: € 2,78 million Grant € 1,86 million EC contribution € 0,73 million