The Life 2.0 project has received the Design For All Foundation Award 2013 for the Living Lab category. The award has been given to Saara Newton, from our Finland team, at the award cerimony, at the International Design Biennial in Saing-Etienne, France. This has been a good result for a fantastic team work. Congratulations to all of us.
Life 2.0 demonstration sessions started in January 2013. These sessions took place at activity centers in the Sant Marti district of the Barcelona city. The UPF aims to present the Life 2.0 platform to participants and collaborators of these activity centers. The aim of the activities is to introduce the project to older people from the Sant Marti area and help those who are interested in start using the platform to do so.
The first activity center visited was the Casal de Gent Gran Joan Casanelles. Researchers from UPF met participants and collaborators of the center on January 11 and 21, 2013. The participants, as well as the collaborators, showed interest in using the services. Older people with less experience with technology took advance of this opportunity to create their account in the platform.
Next month more visits are scheduled. The plan is to visit the Casal de Gent Gran Joan Casanelles more times and disseminate the project in other activities center in the Sant Marti district.
Trust has been a key issue amongst Life 2.0 participants since the first stages of the project. Two meetings with participants were organized in Barcelona, with the aim to discuss about this topic and contribute to build trust among the participants. The meetings took place at the Escola de Àdults de la Verneda Sant Marti – Agora, on October 09 and November 13, 2012.
Both events were attended by new participants, who were interested in the project, and also by regular users of the platform. The participants had the opportunity to meet each other and discuss their opinions and issues in relation to the services.
Over 60 people, including ca 30 elderly people, representatives of the local elderly associations and local authorities, participated to a tema day on the 30 October 2012 at Aalborg University.
The aim of the meeting was to show the platform to a wider audience, the members of Ældresagen, the elderly people's association in Denmark, and to discuss the potentials for the development of the platform also beyond the funding period.
Testers from the Frejlev activity centre also participated, bringing their Ipad, showing how they use it and talking about their experience. Several questions came from other elderly people and from members of other activity centres or organisations, that could be interested in adopting the same tools.
A questionnaire was distributed to the user, to ask whether they would be interested in joining the platform and what services in the platform they would consder with most interest. Most of the respondent are interested in joining the platform, though they live far from the activity centre. The project team is now working on how to address this expression of interest.
Some of the participants to the debate emphasised the enormous potential this platform may have and addressed practical questions about how this platform could be further developed.
The event was also covered by the Danish national radio program P4, with an interview to a user.
More information (in Danish) about the meeting is available at this link http://www.eu-norddanmark.dk/dk/nyheder/nordjylland_deltager_i_eu-stoettet_ikt-projekt.htm
On Oct. 16 2012, Life 2.0 project officer, reviewers and partners visited the activity center Kastaniegården i Frejlev.
The visit was attended by Tina French Nielsen who is the chairman of elder- and handicap area in Aalborg Kommune along with Lise Holst who is leading seven of the activity centers in Aalborg Kommune.
The users and staff of the activity center presented there experience with Life 2.0 and how they saw it as a significant part of their present and future lives.
The regional TV station TV2 Nord was present and the visit was broadcast in the evening news.
You can watch the program here
The Life 2.0 project is now about 6 months in the full pilot phase and we start seeing the first results!! The Web and Ipad applications are now working, the GUI has been designed and is constantly updated according to the indication coming from the test users. In the four pilot location of Aalborg, Barcelona, Joensuu and Milano over 80 people are using the Life2.0 application on the web and on Ipad, to offer and get help and organise events. The platform is also used by local organisations (such as Agora in Spain) and local administrations providing support services to elderly people (such as Aalborg Kommune's training centre in Frejlev, Denmark) to announce their initiatives for elderly people. So far the most active elderly people have been contributing with messages, help and exchange proposals in the platform, however the consortium partners are also trying to contact the "weaker" elderly people, those who may need help, but may not be able to use a computer. They can be put in contact with more active friends, and can access the Life 2.0 platform with the help of institutional social workers or voluntary people that periodically are visiting them
Attracting new users The project team are using different strategies to attract new people to the platform. For example
in Barcelona the announcements from the Life 2.0 platform are being transcribed anonymously to a whiteboard at the entrance of Agora, in order to inform people entering the centre about the existence and the potential of the online platform
How is the Life 2.0 platform used?
The Life 2.0 platform is used by elderly people for any kind of announcement concerning their everyday life: walking together to the supermarket, exchanging knitting instructions, selling honey, going to the church, solving small technical problems, offering help to small hand work at home and many other purposes.
We collected some "good stories" about the early users of the platform in Barcelona; and Aalborg
On Dec. 4 2012, Neeli Prasad from Life 2.0 is organizing the Industry Forum on "Social Networks: Increasing Lonliness or Social Interaction?" at IEEE GlobeCom in Anaheim, California, USA.
Driven by rapidly changing requirements and business needs, ICT and applications are undergoing a paradigm shift: components are replaced by services, distributed over the network, and composed and reconfigured dynamically in a demand-driven way into service-oriented architectures.
More information at IEEE GlobeCom.
The Life 2.0 project will be presented at the conference “Active Aging” 2012 , with a demonstration of the platform.
Throughout Europe the year 2012 is the year of active aging and solidarity among generations. This is marked across Denmark with many different events.
In connection with the International Day of Older Persons on 1 October a major conference is held here in Aalborg entitled “Active Aging”. The aim of the conference is to inspire and forms image of even more active seniors. LIFE 2.0 services will be demonstrated by Aalborg Kommune on a stand.
On the 13-14 October the Life 2.0 project will be presented with a stand at the rehabilitation fair in Frederikshavn.
The Fair is a annual event in northern Denmark, which is usually visited by many political and administrative representatives in North and Middle Jutland. The Fair will focus on citizens and on disability, inclusion and welfare technology, with the aim of creating an open dialogue about future possibilities for a more independent living and the possibilities to stay in their own homes and lives.
The IMPACT seminar will gathers experts from various fields and interesting personalities to discuss about the global challenges and opportunities that will shape our regions and municipalities in the future. The LIfe 2.0 project will also be presented and discussed at the seminar.
The Seminar will start on the 11. September at the Joensuu Science Park, Network Oasis, in Joensuu, Finland.