Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOSFraunhofer Portugal was present in the 5th edition of the AAL Forum which took place on the 24th to the 26th September 2013, in the Louis De Geer Consert & Congress, Norrköping, Sweden. We have continuously participated in this event since its first edition in 2009 as it is one of the main and most important events related to Ambient Assisted Living in Europe.
This year, several projects related to Ambient Assisted Living were presented, although projects designed towards senior citizens, particularly those with chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, held particular highlight.
With more than 60 exhibitors and around 1000 participants from all over Europe, including the major stakeholders in the field of AAL, the AAL Forum 2013 was an ideal event to promote projects, to network, find new business opportunities and to participate in the official and major annual meeting of the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme.
At the event, we showcased 10 research projects and 7 additional Master Thesis’, as well as had the opportunity to disseminate the results achieved in our research projects.
The AAL Forum was an excellent opportunity for Fraunhofer Portugal to present the project Colaborar to potential European collaborators. To this effect, a platform was created to allow for a simple registration process for institutions and/or seniors interested in joining this project, through collaboration in a series of questionnaires, interviews and in testing our solutions.
After introducing the features available on Colaborar’s website to our audience, we had countless opportunities to interact with representatives of Research Centers, of Industry and of Senior Residencies in several European countries who registered along as potential collaborators to this project.
Smart Companion was also presented at this year’s AAL Forum. This Android customization that was specially designed to address seniors’ goals and needs, aims to be a permanently available companion to support seniors in their daily activities, and bring them closer to their relatives or caregivers.
Fraunhofer Portugal was able to partake in conferences that allowed the audience to become better acquainted with the evolution of this OS solution, from its roots as an internal research and development project, to its commercialization.
Throughout the duration of the AAL Forum, we had the opportunity to share our booth for the first time with our most important industrial partner in the field of AAL: Gociety, Netherlands. The enterprising company has been working alongside some of the best scientists and developers from Fraunhofer AICOS towards developing a tool directed to enable seniors to perform common mobile phone tasks. The outcome showcases an excellent example of successful technology transfer of three of our internal R&D projects: Smart Companion, AlzNav and Mover, to a new and innovative solution for seniors, the GoLivePhone®.