Access For All

This year, for the first time ever, the Ambient Assisted Living Forum (AAL Forum) 2010 will be preceded by an Investment Forum. Ambient Assisted Living products and services are ICT-based solutions, such as in-home monitoring devices or telemedicine systems, which help seniors remain independent, active and socially connected for a longer time. The AAL Investment Forum aims to stimulate more innovation and investment in AAL by bringing together innovative ICT enterprises in the Ageing Well market with potential public and private investors. A key activity will be a matchmaking session where innovators can pitch their smart solutions to potential investors.
Source: http://www.aal-invest.eu/

REMOTE is a pan-European research project concerned with the needs of elderly and physically impaired people. The focus is especially on those living in geographical or social isolation whose independent life is at risk with chronic conditions or lifestyle risk factors. The project will provide support for an independent life at home with the aid of ambient intelligence (“AmI”, a technological approach, which means to enhance a person’s environment with sensors, radio modules, and computer processors in order to make everyday life easier) and tele-healthcare. The elderly’s personal environment will be improved with various kinds of monitoring and automation abilities or tracing activity and health condition, and detecting risks and critical situations.
For this purpose the project will use the scale-up of existing research prototypes and new systems for collecting human- and context-related data. These include sensors attached to a person’s body which measure e.g. body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, human posture, etc. Furthermore sensors and actuators can be installed in houses or cars for providing context information, e.g., air temperature, luminance, humidity, human location and motion, etc. Health care professionals have to be able to identify and react immediately to health risks to their patients, irrespective of time and lace. As a growing number of elderly in urban as well as in rural areas live on their own, monitoring activity and medical data at anytime and from anywhere can close the growing gap between urban and rural areas and thus ensure safety and a better quality of care.
REMOTE attains this goal by introducing an innovative, ontology-driven, open reference architecture and platform that will enable interoperability, seamless connectivity and sharing of content among the different services. The project’s overall concept includes:

• A user-centred design philosophy and the consistent involvement of its potential end-users.
• Processes for reaching consensus among all interested parties (stakeholders).
• Strong commitment to ethical and legal issues (e.g. equal rights, and privacy protection).
• Measurement of usability, impact and acceptance of the project’s developments by elderly.
• Close collaboration with research and development institutions and companies in the field of tele-healthcare and ambient intelligence.
• Significant contribution to the recent developments in tele-healthcare and ambient intelligence.

If interested in the project, please fill in the User Forum Nomination form.
For more information: the project’s leaflet and website.

Falls are the main cause of injuries among elderly people, but new technology offers a solution. The EU-funded SensAction-AAL project has developed a solution that involves using a wearable, wireless-enabled device equipped with motion sensors to monitor people susceptible to falls. The information can then be used to help patients perform rehabilitation exercises to improve their balance and mobility, evaluate the progression of a disorder or, crucially, alert emergency services, doctors or relatives in the event of a fall. The consortium is interested in finding investment partners to help conduct more extensive clinical trials and develop a commercial version of the full system.
More information at ICT results website.

This Consultation meeting will bring together experts from all over Europe. The objective of the 2-day meeting is to provide strategic guidance for future research under the AAL Joint Programme and possible future topics for the ICT Policy Support Programme in the field of ICT & Ageing for 2011 and beyond. The outcome will be used as input for the preparation of future calls for proposals.
More info on the EC website.

On 10-11 December 2009, the First International Conference on Acoustic Computing for Ambient Intelligence Applications (ACAIA09) will be organised in Barcelona, Spain.
ACAIA09 is the first annual conference technically co-sponsored by the ACAAL and ACAIA communities with a focus on acoustic computing for Ambient Assisted Applications. It brings together researchers and practitioners of audio-sensing, audio-sensors, acoustic computing and sensing networks to present their on-going ideas, experiences, and outcomes of most recent research, and to exchange their best-of-breed practices for developing reliable, secure, trustworthy and world-wide innovative audio information systems in a more effective and efficient way. It not only allows the academic community to gain an increased awareness of the areas that are vital to the software industry, but it also grants practitioners an opportunity to express their needs and offer cooperation for business plans.
The conference will be held in Barcelona with two major pillars: scientific and technological papers and presentations in applications for sectoral domains and projects. Additional workshops with more focused topics will also be held concurrently.
More info at ACAIA.org.

The VAALID EU project would like to invite you to the workshop “VAALIDate your AAL experience!” in Florence, Italy, on the 3rd of November 2009, from 15h to 17h. The Workshop aims at presenting and discussing the work carried out in the framework of VAALID project to develop method and tools to help designers to create and evaluate Ambient Assisted Living solutions. The workshop will take place at the Palazzo degli Affari in Florence, as a side-event of the OASIS 1st International Conference held in Florence 4th and 5th of November.

Key Dates
Registration free, until 30th of October 2009

For more details and registration please email us at msalaso@itaca.upv.es.

VAALID project aims at creating new tools and methods that facilitate and streamline the process of creation, design, construction and deployment of technological solutions in the context of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) assuring that they are accessible and usable for senior citizens.