engAGEnt strongly represented at Köln's Education Fair 2014

Within the framework of the Cologne Education Fair 2014, engAGEnt partners had a strong representation: A stand with informative material of the outcome of the engAGEnt project including permanent staff at the stand that gave advice to interested visitors. On Sunday, a sessions on "New professional perspectives in AAL" was given by Ed Mahood (DEKRA) and Dirk Sommermeyer (iAQ) in front of an interested audience.

More info on AAL professions

Successful AAL Consultant Pilot Trainings organized by iAQ in Germany

In order to face the upcoming challenges in relation to the demographic change, technologies and concepts of Ambient Assistant Living (AAL) have been developed. To improve the quality of life of older people, technological assistance systems are used. 

The European project engAGEnt, co-funded by the EU commission, developed a harmonised European curriculum based on the principles of ECVET which will qualify professionals for the profession of an AAL Consultant. 

In March and April 2014, pilot trainings were conducted in Regensburg, Germany. As an introduction to the topic of AAL and "social interaction", an online seminar was conducted on March, 31st. On April 11th and 12th two classroom seminars were held on the topics of "health monitoring" and "safety technology in the home environment". In addition to methods for the analysis of individual needs and circumstances, the participants received practical insights into the possibilities of technical assistance systems by means of examples and concrete situations. Using case studies, the participants developed technical solution scenarios and discussed ethical and privacy related aspects. A total of 18 people participated in this course. The feedback from the participants on the structure and content of the course were positive.

The completion of the project will take place in September at the 15th “Kölner Weiterbildungsmesse”. The project team will present the ECVET based, European curriculum of an AAL Consultant.

Successful final event of CompAAL!

After 2 years of tackling the identification of skills and competences related to Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), CompAAL presented its results at the Silver Economy EXPO which took place for the first time in Paris, France on 5 - 6 December 2013! 

A booklet of 5 Role Profiles and a Training Guide for VET providers, employers and employees in the field of AAL are the outcomes of the partners' efforts. These outcomes were presented during the micro-conference "How AAL boosts employment - a European view", which took place on 6 December 2013 at 14h30 at the Silver Economy EXPO 2013, Paris, France. Francois Adoue, Maison de la Promotion Social, presented the CompAAL results to an interesting public of approximately 40 professionals, amongst them SMEs and consultants. 

The EXPO allowed to enlarge the AAL network through contacts with companies innovating in the exciting field of AAL, a field with great market and employment potential! CompAAL was present at the EXPO with a booth from 5 December to 6 December 2013.

More information about the CompAAL final event!

CompAAL was presented to the members of the IT and Communication Social Dialogue Committee (IKPB) in Budapest

The Hungarian IT and Communication Social Dialogue Committee (ITDC)* organised its regular meeting on 19 November 2013 in Budapest, within the framework of which the results of the CompAAL project were presented to the participating experts, involved in ICT education development in Hungary. 

The event hosted 4 presentations followed by a discussion among the participants. Ms Erzsébet Szlamka, representing the Educational Authority, provided an overview of the European Qualifications Framework and the status of the development of the National Qualifications Framework in Hungary (MKKR). Her presentation was followed by a detailed introduction into the vocational training related national sub-project of MKKR. Ms Kinga Szebeni, National Labour Office, indicated that by mid 2013 the classification of each vocational training must be completed. 

The third presentation was given by Ms Klara Süveges-Heilingbrunner, representing the ICT Association of Hungary which is the Hungarian partner of the CompAAL project. Ms Süveges-Heilingbrunner informed the participants on the results of the CompAAL project which is close to its termination. The presentation provided an overview both on the 5 Rob Profiles in the field of AAL, defined by the CompAAL experts, as well as the Training Guide which has been elaborated for VET providers, employers and employees involved or interested in AAL related vocational trainings.

Within the framework of the last presentation, Mr József Mlinarics, member of ITCDC, informed the audience on the eJobs Observatory, its functionalities and services.

ITCDC is a bilateral forum operating on sectorial  level. It is a body that implements interest representation, interest protection, interest mediation and interest conciliating tasks at work. Its aim is to achieve constructive co-operation of the social partners. The participants observe the national laws, the EU directives and the valid agreements of each sector.

More information about MKKR.

How AAL boosts employment - a European view! Join the CompAAL final event!

Why AAL is more important today than ever? Can I do business out of AAL? Where can I find qualified people to work on AAL? How can I train my employees on AAL? If you want to get answers to these questions, join the micro-conference "How AAL boosts employment - a European view", which will take place on 6 December 2013 at 14h30 at the Silver Economy EXPO 2013, Paris, France. 

The Silver Economy EXPO, which will gather companies and stakeholders working on the AAL field, is the best environment to present the results of CompAAL (Role Profiles on AAL and Training Guidelines). CompAAL will be present with a booth. We invite you to visit us! We will be happy to meet you and provide with with the latest trends on Skills and AAL.

Silver Economy has been launched in France by Michèle Delaunay, Minister for elderly and for Autonomy.  

An AAL solution has been awarded as 1 of the 10 most innovative worldwide

The "Compagnon digital" (Digital Companion) is a touch screen with a thousand functions, especially for the elderly. This innovation launched by the Belgian start-up "CareSquare" has been awarded by the Netexplo Forum. Each year, the global observatory of digital innovation awards 10 projects that are the most promising and innovative. 

The "Digital Companion" was designed to extend and enhance the independence of the elderly and home care. It allows medical monitoring of patients suffering from certain diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or pulmonary disease.

Video in French:

 

More information.

CompAAL was present at PETRA Conference in Rhodes!

On 29-31 May 2013 Rhodes, Greece welcomed around 100 participants in the 6th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA). This year the focus was on technological solutions for the in- home care of the elderly, as well as the care of people with chronic disorders.

CompAAL was presented in two sessions:

Tools, Infrastructures, Architectures and techniques for Deploying Pervasive Applications in Assistive Environments

• Exploring Ambient Assisted Living Job Profiles, Achilles Kameas (Hellenic Open University)

How Ambient Assisted Living influences the job market - a European view, moderated by Aspasia Theodosiou and Achilles Kameas (Hellenic Open University)

• Emerging AAL jobs and competence needs identified by the CompAAL project, Adriana Baer (Euproma)
• e-Jobs Observatory: Promoting European standards in qualification for AAL jobs, Aikaterini Sylla (EMF-The Forum of e-Excellence)

The PETRA Conference brings together different types of technology to address an important social and healthcare issue: as the world's population ages, there is growing interest in solutions for the in- home care of the elderly as well as for the care of people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other disabilities or traumas,. These people will increasingly rely on technology to be able to stay in their homes.

More information about CompAAL.

ADvanced monitoring serVices of Elder via sensor NeTworks (ADVENT)

ADVENT is a project funded under the action “Cooperation 2011 - Productive and research institutions’ partnerships in targeted research and technology domains”, of the National Strategic Reference Framework 2007-2013, Greece

It focuses on the area of Personal Health Systems, in the field of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), where it proposes a novel platform to support the provision of a comfortable and safe environment for daily living of elders, while retaining their mobility and independency. This will be achieved through advanced technologies in various research fields that will be integrated in a specially designed platform, in order to facilitate the provision of a coherent set of personalized services. 

The main objectives of ADVENT are to develop and implement the ADVENT platform, as well as a series of health-related and general purpose assistive services. An ultimate objective is the creation of the proper conditions to assist elderly people to carry out their daily activities with improved security, confidence and efficiency. ADVENT will deploy a system architecture for real-time data acquisition from heterogeneous sources: bio-sensors, sensing devices providing context data (e.g. location) and user profiles providing personal data enriched with context-related information. These data will be properly processed to produce medical knowledge for decision support purposes and facilitate personalized service delivery. 

ADVENT will develop a prototype product to provide automated assistance to the elderly at home, targeting a market that promises to grow as people live longer. The technologies utilized within ADVENT will produce a prototype modular package, with interfaces that will be very easy to use, integrated with hardware and software components that will encompass 2nd and 3rd generation telecare. The package will be embedded in a holistic service concept, targeting the actual needs of the elders’ independent living and it will be tested and evaluated in real-world contexts.

More information about ADVENT.

Major AAL event in Paris May 16th

The "Nuit du Grand Age et du Bien Vieillir" is an event (Forum+Trade show) will take place in Paris Casino on May 16th.

This event is placed under the aegis of the Solidarity and Elderly French minister Michèle Delaunay and will present in a Forum/Exposition the last technological developments to support autonomy for elderly and for people with limited autonomy.

Awards will also be given to support the best products and services devoted to Ambient Assisted Living followed by a networking cocktail.

This event has also to be placed in parallel with the creation of a french professional organisation to support the development of Silver Economy in France ASIPAG

Source : Nuit du Grand Age et du Bien Vieillir

CompAAL was presented at the eVITA Hungarian Technology Platform

The ICT Association of Hungary (IVSZ) took part in the event of the eVITA Hungarian technology Platform on 25 April 2013, in Budapest. eVITA platform focuses on Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) related technologies and aims at bringing together stakeholders to discuss relevant topics and cooperate, in order to facilitate the dissemination of AAL research results.

Participants had the chance to attend three presentations. Mr Sándor Oroján, expert of IVSZ responsible for vocational activities introduced the participants to the background of the CompAAL project as well as to its first results, i.e. fiveJob Role Profiles.

Mr Zoltán Havasi, CEO of MOHAnet Plc, introduced the participants to the most important AAL related developments of the company and emphasised that the daily usage of these products require additional knowledge from the users and maintainers. Therefore, vocational training is key in this field.  

Within the framework of the third presentation, Mr Loránd Vajda, representative of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, presented to the participants the current results of the CVN project (ConnectedVitality – The Personal Telepresence Network), funded by the AAL Programme. Mr Vajda stressed that Yooom, a solution that links groups of senior citizens into a video communication network, enabling them to choose the activity as well as levels of social interaction according to their individual needs, abilities and lifestyle, might become a popular tool for elderly persons for keeping contact with their loved ones also in case of bigger distances.

Discussions were mainly targeted on the focus of the profiles (more IT than medical), the planned level of the training as well as the expected final outcome of the project. 

More information about the eVITA Hungarian Technology Platform (only in HU).

French AAL sector is on the way

Michele Delaunay French Minister for Elderly and Autonomy, in cooperation with Arnaud Montebourg, Minister of Industrial renewal has launched the Silver Economy field by creating a special comitee on April 24th .

France has 15 Millions of elderly people and 900 millions in the world. This represent a large market that would lead Europe to 0.25 % of growth every year.

Silver Economy is represented by 600 companies, which will be supported by special actions from The Public Investment Bank (BPI)

Major leaders in the field of AAL are invested in this action such as Legrand, Orange, french Postal Service, Essilor or Toshiba with a large number of Start Up and SME all over the country.

A national (or international label should be created in next years to support the branch and ensure quality and adequation with users and market needs.

The e-jobs-Observatory clearly support those actions and will publish in next weeks professional profiles in the field of AAL and will publish Training guidelines for training organisations.

Professional roles profiles are under open evaluation at the moment on the e-Jobs AAL Corner http://www.e-jobs-observatory.eu/AAL_corner

Source: Usine Nouvelle

Call for contribution in the AAL Forum 2013!

The annual conference of the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP), the AAL Forum, will take place in Norrköping, Sweden, between 24 and 26 September 2013. The event is entitled “Impacting individuals, society and economic growth” and its goal is twofold: on the one hand the conference will showcase the significant progresses made by the AAL JP projects and solutions in the exhibition area with various demos and presentations, whereas the discussion in the sessions and in the plenaries will address two important questions: 

• How can we support an increased independence for older adults and benefit for the society as a whole? 
• What are the business models that stimulate large scale use of AAL solutions and how may they boost economic growth?

The complete Call for contribution is available here.

Important dates:

Closing date of call for contributions: 26 April 2013

Submission approval: Begin June 2013

More information about the AAL Forum 2013 and the Call for for contribution.  

European Commission and Member States: how they are supporting Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions?

On 21-22 March 2013 a high level event on Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) and Public Procurement of Innovative Solutions (PPI) is taking place in Berlin, Germany. The program of the event as well as the instructions for registration can be found on the Berlin event website. Participation to the event is open and free of charge.

This high-level event will offer an opportunity to hear first-hand from the European Commission and Member States how they are supporting the implementation of PCP and PPI. In other words, how public purchasers (and private procurers) are enabled to buy better and/or cheaper products and services while at the same time boosting innovation.

From a European perspective, European Commission services will present 2013 CIP and FP7 calls for proposals as well as future financial instruments (Horizon 2020, CEF, Structural funds 2014-2020) to support the demand for innovation and innovative procurement. Public procurers and other stakeholders interested to network or share/present experiences in preparation of future EU calls for PCP and PPI projects can contact the EU officials on the event program to actively participate in the breakout session 7 on public buyers networks for future applications to EU calls on PCP and PPI. Contact in particular lieve.bos@ec.europa.eu for the CIP-ICT-PSP-2013 calls supporting PPI pilots (in ICT fo! r health and ageing well) and the FP7-ICT-2013-11 call supporting PCP projects (in e-learning and digital preservation). 

Background info about submission deadlines, scope for currently open FP7 and CIP calls on PCP and PPI can be found on the calls page of the PCP-PPI website.

Workshop on Standardisation and Certification for AAL

The 3rd AALIANCE 2 stakeholder workshop will take place  in Frankfurt/Main, Germany on 12 February 2013.

This workshop will focus on the topics of standardisation and certification in the field of AAL. The workshop will on one hand review the existing landscape of standards relevant for AAL as documented by AALIANCE2 and on the other hand discuss future needs in terms of new standards, certification programmes and organizational structures for promoting interoperability in the AAL sector, providing input to the revised AALIANCE2 Strategic Research Agenda and Roadmap

Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Date: 12 February 2013

Time: 10:00 – 16:30

More information about the Workshop on Standardisation and Certification for AAL.

Ambient Assisted Living: Call 6 - Info Day, 6 Feb 2013, Brussels, Belgium

The AAL Association organizes an Info Day on Wednesday, 6 February 2013 at the Royal Academy of Science and Arts in Brussels to inform the European community about the next call topic of the AAL Joint Programme  (AAL JP): “ICT solutions for supporting occupation in life of older adults.” The topic of this sixth call will be explained, as well as the procedures for applying and for searching a partner.

Call 6 of the AAL JP aims at funding the development of ICT-based solutions which enable older adults to continue managing their occupation – at work in an office or a factory (or any working environment), in a first or subsequent new second or third careers, in paid or voluntary occupation – while preserving health and motivation to remain active. The call shall target the preservation of cognitive and physical capabilities of older persons when performing their paid or unpaid activity.

More information about the the Info Day on the Call 6 of the AAL JP.

SmartHome: a German initiative with AAL possibilities

The SmartHome Initiative Germany is a transsectoral, interdisciplinary communication platform. It serves the exchange of knowledge and experience among regional SmartHome organisations as well as those offering products, services, and research results to the community at large. Members represent the entire spectrum of organisations dealing with building automation, such as electricians, electronic specialists, IT, telecommunications, medical technology, industry, trades and crafts, architecture, research and education. 

More information about this initiative. (in German)

Die andere Seite der demographischen Medaille

Die Bevölkerung wird zwar älter und dadurch entstehen neue Arbeitsmöglichkeiten im Bereich Pflege, altersgerechtes Wohnen und mehr. Doch die Kehrseite der Medaille ist, dass es auch erwartet wird, dass die Menschen länger arbeiten.
Mehr hierzu in dem Zeit-Artikel, "Mit 67 soll längst nicht Schluss sein".

Trad: The population is getting older and older and new job opportunities are increasing in (health)care, ambient assisted living, age-appropriate accommodations and more. But the downside is that it is also expected that people are working longer.
More information about the full article "At 67 is far from being the end" in German.

Altersgerechtes Wohnen fängt nicht nur im Alter an

Das altersgerechte Wohnen ist nicht nur ein Thema für ältere Leute. Wenn man im Alter nicht ins Heim will, sollte man sich frühzeitig -- sogar beim Bau -- Gedanken hierüber machen. Die Zeitschrift Stern gibt einige gute Tipps dazu: "So umschiffen Sie das Altersheim".

The Supporting Active Ageing through Training (SAATT) project involves EU partners

The Supporting Active Ageing through Training (SAATT) project involves partners in four EU countries: Italy, Greece, Finland and the UK. The focus of project is to develop and deliver a training package that will inform workers and TU representatives about issues and problems facing ageing employees and best practice in meeting those needs. 

The training will have two key strands:

- Strand 1 is workplace focused and will enable TU reps to identify key issues affecting older workers, and effectively negotiate AAP policy. This strand will be adopted and delivered by TUs after the action.

- Strand 2 has an individual focus and will help older workers to prepare for retirement in considering issues of flexible working, health, welfare, diet. This strand will be delivered in partnership between TUs and employers after the action.

More information about this project

Pre-announcement of Open Consultation for AAL JP Call 6

Based on the decision of its General Assembly, the AAL JP will launch an open consultation allowing all stakeholders interested in the field of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) to provide input for Call 6 of the AAL Joint Programme (AAL JP).

The consultation will address the following three candidate topics:

- Prevention

- Learning and Knowledge Sharing

- AAL@Work

You can provide your input on these potential call topics from 4 to 21 May 2012. We will provide a template on our website as of 4 May, which you can download, fill in and send back to us.

More information about this Open Consultation for AAL