Access For All

The AALIANCE2 Project is pleased to announce the first Stakeholder Workshop of the AALIANCE2 Roadmap “Technologies for AAL solutions: AAL application domains” on February 14, 2012, 9.00–16.30, at The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34 in 56025 Pontedera (Pisa), Italy. Contact persons are f.cavallo@sssup.it, m.aquilano@sssup.it, christian.wehrmann@vdivde-it.de.

AALIANCE2 Project is a Coordination Action funded in the FP7-ICT-2011.7, which focuses on the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions based on advanced ICT technologies for ageing and wellbeing of elderly people in Europe. One of its main objectives is to build consensus upon research priorities in the AAL roadmap and Strategic Research Agenda for the upcoming decades.

This first workshop will focus on the functional areas associable to the AAL application domains (AAL4Person, AAL in the Community) and the relative activities/application scenarios. The objectives are to refine, classify, organize and improve the contents of the first AALIANCE Roadmap, published in March 2010.

Suitable persons for the AALIANCE2 Workshop are experts in the AAL domain, which have experience in some of the following tasks: designing, developing, producing, experimenting, and assessing AAL technologies or studying and defining the main aspects of AAL field. Experts should be AAL technology developers and researchers, ICT service providers and technology suppliers, policy‐makers, standardization organizations, health and care service organizations, caregivers, etc.

We would like to invite you (or some of your staff) to participate in this Workshop as Experts in the field of the AAL or responsible in Projects related to AAL and Ageing Well. The participation in the Workshop is limited to a small number of experts, therefore we ask you to confirm your participation as soon as possible, since the experts will be accepted based on the “who first confirms, first participates in”.
We gently ask you to extend this invitation also to all partners of the AAL project in which you are involved in.

If you accept to participate in the Workshop, you will receive guidelines to participate in the event and contents of the previous AALIANCE Roadmap.

The objectives of the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy cannot be attained without the active involvement of disabled people, ie some 80 million individuals (16% of the population). Such is the European Parliament’s message in a non-legislative resolution on the mobility and inclusion of disabled persons and the 2010-2020 strategy in favour of disabled persons, adopted on 25 October.

According to the latest statistics, the drop-out rate in education and the unemployment rate of disabled persons is at least twice as high as the rate of able persons and the poverty rate among disabled persons is 70% higher than the average rate. To address this situation, MEPs call on member states and the European Commission to take concrete measures in terms of mobility and social inclusion. They state that a “welcome development” in terms of free movement of persons and barrier-free services would be the introduction of a unified European mobility card for reciprocal recognition of care for people with disabilities. This would allow disabled persons to study, work and travel more freely.

MEPs stress the enormous importance of employment on the ordinary labour market for disabled persons and call on the Commission and the governments of member states to adopt legal and financial measures which truly encourage the employment of disabled persons. Lastly, MEPs encourage the creation of special forms of leave so that parents can take care of their children with disabilities and urge that the commitment shown and the work performed by parents of children with disabilities should be recognised by being counted as professional experience and by being specifically taken into account when old-age pension entitlements are calculated.

This non-legislative resolution, drafted by the chamber’s only deaf MEP, Ádám Kósa (EPP, Hungary), follows from the EU’s 2010-2020 strategy on disability. Adopted in late 2010, this Commission communication provides a framework for European action and includes measures that can be taken at a national level in order to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While MEPs welcome this initiative, they regret that the Commission’s communication does not include an integrated gender perspective or a separate chapter on gender-specific disability policies. MEPs recall that the Commission pledged to present a legislative proposal for a European Accessibility Act, and stress the need for strong, binding measures at EU level, with a clear road map. MEPs also call for the adoption of the necessary measures to help the visually impaired to carry out business transactions.
Source: Europolitics

During the EU Conference on “Innovation for Digital Inclusion”, in Gdańsk, Poland on 5-7 October 2011, which was devoted to the innovative usage of solutions based on information and communication technologies (ICT) and its importance in the process of e-Inclusion in Europe, following themes were addressed:

• new developments of ICT in public inclusive services
• models of e-inclusion of digitally excluded Europeans, introducing them to wider social and cultural life, and increasing career opportunities on today’s digitally driven market
• effective models of independent living and security of the elderly, based on innovative and economically feasible e-care and e-health solutions
• overview of the most innovative national and regional e-inclusion programmes, and initiatives, as tools for the implementation of the Digital Agenda for Europe
• importance of the e-Inclusion policy to the delivery of the Digital Agenda for Europe.

The conference ended up with the adoption of a document stressing the priority actions that should be taken by the EU in the immediate future to improve digital literacy and inclusion of all EU citizens – “Gdansk Roadmap for Digital Inclusion”.
To read more and view the presentations, visit the conference website.

“The EU needs to get more people with disabilities into jobs and include provisions on disability in more of its other policies,” says Parliament in a resolution, passed last week, on the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020.
“Over 80 million people, i.e. around 16% of the EU’s total population, are living with disabilities. The Europe 2020 Strategy target of 75% of the population aged 20-64 in Europe 2020 in employment cannot be achieved unless it includes people with some form of disability”, said Àdám Kósa ahead of the plenary vote.
The employment rate for people with disabilities is only around 45 % in the EU and this is one of the groups hardest hit by the financial crisis, says the resolution, which was passed by a show of hands.
Austerity measures must not become a pretext for unjustified cuts in services for persons with disabilities or in projects for their social inclusion, MEPs say.
The European Parliament stresses the need to reach a swift agreement on the proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. This was approved with 362 votes in favour, 273 against and 23 abstentions.
It also calls on the European Commission to reinforce anti-discrimination and accessibility provisions in the EU’s cohesion policy plans for 2014-2020, public procurement reform proposals and to present a legislative proposal for a European Accessibility Act with strong and binding measures at EU level to improve access to goods and services for people with disabilities.
MEPs call on EU Member States and the European Commission to recognise sign language as an official language in the Member States. The rapporteur himself is deaf and is assisted by an interpreter using sign language during meetings.
Finally, the resolution calls on Member States and the Commission to swiftly ratify and implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). So far, the Convention has been ratified by 17 Member States.

The FUTURAGE Road Map for European Ageing Research was formally launched yesterday (Tuesday 18th October) at a conference in the European Parliament in Brussels.
FUTURAGE is a two-year project funded by the European Commission, under the Seventh Framework Programme, to create the definitive road map for ageing research in Europe for the next 10-15 years.
Drawing on experts and specialists from Europe and beyond, the road map represents the most extensive consultation ever conducted in this field and identifies the main priorities on ageing and health from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Through a chain of events, academic and non-academic stakeholders engaged in a state-of-the-art assessment of research priorities, emerging fields and methods to build consensus on the research priorities in ageing until 2025.
The FUTURAGE Road Map for European Ageing Research is now available to download here.

The European Commission has established the e-Inclusion Awards to raise awareness, encourage participation and recognise excellence and good practice in using ICT and digital technology to tackle social and digital exclusion across Europe. The scheme ran for the first time in 2008. The 2012 eInclusion awards will underline the work done by intermediaries and encourage the dissemination of good training practices in the special award category “we are the champions”. The other award category is “I am digitally driven” and will highlight the impact of digital skills on life prospects, with special focus on employability, re-skilling, visible improvement in socio economic situation of groups at risk of exclusion). Method of participation to the call will be submission of audiovisual material. Key criteria for selection will be: 1) demonstrated positive impact of the initiatives presented on individuals’ employability and wellbeing; 2) creativity and quality of the material submitted in support of the entry. The story told should inspire and encourage other organisations and individuals to take part in e-inclusion initiatives.
More information.