EXECUTIVE SUMMARY


T


he Flemish government has recognised ageing as one of the major societal challenges to be tackled. To support this policy, the government’s innovation agency IWT


has started initiatives such as Flanders’ Care and the Care living labs as the flasgships of their challenge-driven innovation policy. To make their work more tangible and as an


illustration of their success, the six Flemish Care living labs organised an Experience Day on the Tuesday before the Forum. About 300 participants from the broad elderly care sector came to the ICC to be submerged into a complete experience consisting of demonstrations, workshops and interactive sessions. The participants represented care facilities, older adults, care professionals, policy makers and researchers. Properly engaging with older adults is one of the most important


aspects of any work being done in the ageing space. Without dialogue between the people who create the solutions and the people who use them, the needs of the user will never truly be supported. The Experience Day offered opportunities for both sides, allowing the older adults to see some of the solutions that have been created to help them live independently, while also giving people making the solutions invaluable time to receive feedback and come up with new ideas. AAL projects that took part in this additional day of activity were delighted with


the opportunity to interact with the people they are designing products and solutions for. Meanwhile, one of the older people present remarked that she had no idea this work was going on but was “very happy to try out some of the things I was shown and even happier if they could help me at home”.


“Properly engaging with older adults is one of the most important


aspects of any work being done in the


ageing space” WWW.AALFORUM.EU | 21


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