Executive Synopsis


supported a regional approach and local agenda as a basis for development. Adrian Agrimi, Director of Industrial


Research and Innovation, Technology Department, Apulia Region, picked up on the need for regional policies for social well being to be far more sophisticated with better experimentation of what works and what doesn’t being carried out at a regional level. He called for regional innovation partnerships, the need for a clear policy path and to raise awareness of all the issues being discussed throughout European communities. Fozzy Moritz Eckhart, delivered a


clear message of the need to look into the future at the start of each project and establish a clear motivation for creating the innovation in the first place – and in doing this, we should stop thinking about the issues in terms of just the elderly but in terms of us all and the things we can do at any age to keep active and healthy. Misha Pavel, Director of the American


National Science Foundation added a US perspective to the session when he told the audience that the problem on both sides of the Atlantic is the ratio between the elderly who don’t work and the working population and this makes healthcare a huge cost problem as the former outweighs the latter. He also highlighted the fact that at the moment sophisticated healthcare prolongs life but does not increase the quality of life and we need a paradigm shift in order to do this – we need proactive prevention instead of reaction to disease; patient care in the home instead to a hospital- centric system and evidence-based learning about health instead of experience-based training. But, he warned, as in the US, change will be difficult.


Session three The final session of the Forum focused


on how AAL solutions can support Social Innovation and began with an attempt to define Social Innovation by Pekka Kahri of TEKES in Finland. He described it quite simply as being about people, society and creating new value and new ways to organise and deliver services to a changing society. An important point to remember, he said, was that the outcome of this change is often for the public good rather than the individual alone. He used the examples of social and health services of the development of open source software to illustrate this point. He finished by asking people to look at innovation not simply as another term we all use to explain new ways of thinking or doing


4


things but also as a concept that will create societal value. Olga Rivera, Deputy Minister for


Quality Research and Health Innovation in the Basque Region of Spain, asked a simple but fundamental question for the Forum to answer – do AAL solutions already support elderly people or do they just have the potential to do so? Indeed, are they delivering at all? The bottom line, she said, is that health systems need redesigning. At the moment the care of chronic disease consumes most of the budget and the systems just weren’t designed for that and it will only get more critical as society grows older. AAL solutions can help, she said answering her own question, but they are not working yet. We need to be quicker. Rivera went on


to demonstrate how new systems are tested in real situations in the Basque region and this should be a template for others to follow. We are a living lab for new solutions, she said, from public procurement systems to intellectual property rights for the SMEs developing the innovative products, from new products and services designed for chronic conditions to creating closer relationships with public constituencies. Finally, like many others at the Forum, she called for a GLocal approach to making the changes we need – regional solutions applied on a global scale. Alex Kalache, Senior Policy Advisor


with the UN, spoke about the needs of social innovation and AAL solutions with an international perspective and followed the previous speaker by calling for the need for more emphasis being put on the prevention of chronic disease, rather than their treatment. He also injected some stark facts about the world’s ageing population that makes the need to act now even more compelling. By 2050, the population of 60+ citizens will be six times what it is today, while by 2100, the populations of Asia and Africa alone will be more than the global population today. The world is ageing fast and the challenges are huge, he said. We need age-friendly environments and we need to share ideas around the world. Yes, we can have social innovation, he concluded, but it needs to be in the context of where people actually live and in that sense we must listen to older people. After the keynote speakers, the Forum


heard from three representatives from AAL regions – Spain, Hungary and Finland. Carlos Bezos of the Value Creation City Lab asked four quick questions – is technology making people more active or not? Is technology changing the attitudes and habits of older people? Do we respect older people or are they seen as costly


problems and what role to we give older people in creating the technology we are trying to implement? Without answering, he concluded that we should listen to older people and let them help shape the technology. Zoltan Lantos from Hungary spoke


about Central and Eastern Europe being a hugely diverse region, where income is generally lower and less is spent on healthcare. But health is not healthcare, wherever you are, he said. They are different and AAL solutions need to address life and personal relationships rather than treat disease. Finally Jarkko Häggman presented


a view of AAL from a municipality perspective and highlighted the need for more at-home care developed between the local authority and the private service provider on the local level as a joint venture. The resulting services should be integrated and the end user, the elderly person or the carer, should have a one-stop shop where these services can be accessed. AAL solutions can be in a market place, where users and service providers can meet and a service integrator can help make life easier for both. Remember, he said, all end users are people, and that means us, too.


Closing remarks As the Forum closed, Massimo


Inguscio, Director CNR, declared that great progress had been made over the three days and that there is a definite sense of coordination and convergence across Europe. AAL JP is putting together some strong, cooperative ideas and successful products and services as well as successful SMEs will emerge. Elena Gentile, Ministry of Welfare


and Social Planning, Apulia Region, was also positive about the progress being made. The Forum had highlighted the great challenge that there is huge value in the quality of life as well as the dignity of people. The Forum had clearly demonstrated this and been a platform for exchanging opinion and demonstrating solutions. She will take from the Forum the need to build relationships with other regions to tackle the great challenges we face, promoting best practice and more research. Peter Winlev Jensen, Deputy Head of


Unit at DG INFSO, outlined how the EC had taken on board the great challenges and made 2012 the European Year of Active Ageing, an initiative that offered the AAL JP projects a great opportunity. He called for all at AAL JP to be ambassadors for ICT and ageing, to help communicate their results and work in this field and to continue to work together to make a real difference for all our futures.


AAL Forum 2011


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