On Monday 19 April, COST Science Officer, Dr Karina Marcus participated in the online workshop “Information and Communication Technologies (ITCs) and Older Persons” organised in the frame of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2021.
With this year’s WSIS focusing on “ICTs” for ‘Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Societies and Economies’, the specific workshop highlighted these initiatives improving the e-inclusion of seniors to ensure social fairness, to avoid intergenerational divide and help building resilience capacities to react to crisis.
The consequences of the recent pandemic, in addition to the fast-pace technology developments, create many additional challenges to support and include senior people in the process of building these new societies. Ms Monique Epstein, director of e-seniors association in France and the moderator of the session, highlighted the importance of keeping extending the scope of ITCs to broader notions such as “inclusive habitats”. This was the occasion to present the work performed by the multidisciplinary teams under several COST Actions, tackling this issue through various topics such as: privacy; language and technology; and smart, healthy indoor and outdoor age-friendly environments.
Screenshot of the Session with Moderator Ms Monique Epstein and COST Science Officer,Dr Karina Marcus
Following a brief introduction of the COST Programme, Dr Marcus provided an overview of these different COST Actions that contribute efficiently and complementarily to this growing landscape of initiatives.
COST Actions, ICTs and older persons
By 2050, the number of people in the EU aged 65 and above is expected to grow by 70% and the number of people aged over 80, by 170%, which will increase demand and costs for healthcare. Integrating ICT solutions into habitats, along with improved building design, will allow us to live at home and stay active and productive for longer, despite cognitive or physical impediments. That’s what the COST Action SHELD-ON is aiming for, fostering knowledge exchange and developing a joint research agenda to meet the requirements of Europe’s ageing population while promoting healthy and safe aging.
Active and Assisted Living (AAL) systems can be great for the wellbeing of older, impaired, and frail people. Recent advances have given these devices the ability to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ and they can be seen as intrusive by some end users (assisted people, and professional and informal caregivers.) The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) establishes the obligation for technologies to meet the principles of data protection by design and data protection by default. The COST Action GoodBrother is working on this prospect to increase the awareness on the ethical, legal, and privacy issues associated to audio- and video-based monitoring.
As technology developments evolve and impact many areas, the progress in augmentation technology risks at affecting different forms of language work. COST Action LITHME will shine a light on the ethical implications of emerging language technologies.
Promoting social inclusion and independent living is key for healthy ageing in society.
COST Action NET4AGE-FRIENDLY fosters awareness and supports the creation and implementation of smart, healthy indoor and outdoor environments for present and future generations. It further aims to overcome fragmentation and critical gaps at both conceptual and pragmatic innovation level on responsive, age-friendly and sustainable environments to address European research and policy challenges.
More information
Find more about the WSIS forum 2021 here
Find more about the workshop “ICTs and Older persons” here