EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Whether Europe has those entrepreneurs
who can do it their own way is a big question, but Rajasekharan believes they are here and if they are prepared to listen and learn, then he believes they offer the best solution for addressing the challenges of the ageing population and they will deliver what is needed into this market. “Then you will see things start to appear on the market that the ageing population really does want,” he adds. While developing products the elderly population want to buy is important, when it comes to health and care services, there will be many products that they may not want, but they will need – some of the medical devices being developed, for example. No one really wants those things, but they may well need them. This is another big market opportunity and once again Rajasekharan believes Europe can learn from what is happening in America. “Even though people may not want certain
things, they will end up buying them or being prescribed them,” he said. “For these products it would be useful to engage with doctors during development because they know exactly what many elderly people will need and the market here is huge. “That’s another difference between here and
the US,” he continues. “Because the doctors there have to watch their costs so tightly, they are beginning to innovate themselves and invest in ideas from entrepreneurs. I have seen this recently, where the physician is the investor, the person who will put his time, money and effort into helping an entrepreneur validate his hypothesis.”
care organisations, researchers, industry.
It’s not just about money” Rajasekharan is keen to see more business
people at the Forum. “Someone told me that the AAL Forum was a great place to come to for this market as it brings a lot of people together,” he explains. “And it is true that a lot of different people do come here and so I would really like to see more investors who are interested in social impact come to the event next time as well as more care organisations, family officers and people like that. “I think then we will see more people asking
the right questions, like ‘how many paying customers do you have?’ because that is what an investor would ask. “I will also come back with entrepreneurs
next time, to see if the AAL community can support them and their ideas – because the support facility is here and entrepreneurs could really take advantage of that.”
“AAL has the network in place – living labs,
JOIN THE NOW WITH THE FUTURE I
Sylvie De Smet, Manager, FamilyEye
t’s important for the future that AAL works together with all the companies who participate in their funded projects. They need to collaborate with them in one direction, fast forward and not look back or at what others are doing. I see AAL as a good way to collaborate with the people you need to work with and to
create the things we need. Everybody is talking about ageing, but just looking forward we need to consider what people need now and what they will need in the future and we need to join these things up.
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