SAAM – Supporting Active Ageing through Multimodal coaching

Period: Oct. 2017 – Sept. 2020 || Budget: € 4 Mio

Project website: saam2020.eu

Objective: To develop and validate a Virtual Assistant-Coach in a controlled environment that supports the process of healthy ageing, preserving physical, cognitive, mental, and social well-being of older citizens for as long as possible.

Development Stages:

1. Needs assessment of older people
2. Establishing ethical, privacy, security, and technology standards
3. Technology development and internet of things
4. Exploratory development of advanced components
5. Integration and verification
6. Pilot testing
7. Business development and communication.

Focus on: User-centric design, ambient monitoring, multimodal coaching, and social circles interaction.

Key features: Unobtrusive ambient, personal activity and wearable sensing; privacy preserving audio and video sensing; tangible and multimodal user interfaces; data fusion; profiling with machine learning methods for complex data; emotional and affective computing; persuasive technology; progression of ageing and early cognitive decline detection.

Consortium:
Balkan Institute for Labour and Social Policy (BG)
Institute Josef Stefan (SI)
University of Edinburgh (UK)
Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg (AT)
Scale Focus AD (BG)
Interactive Wear AG (DE)
University Rehabilitation Institute (SI)
Bulgarian Red Cross
National Catholic Federation Caritas (BG)
The Austrian Platform of the European Federation of Older People EURAG

The future autonomous modular system will be an entirely new innovative product not only for Bulgaria but also for Europe. It will offer an integrated approach for influencing and encouraging social contacts with the help of information and communication technologies (ICT).

Such an innovation is especially needed by European societies. According to EU data between 2010 and 2030 the number of people over the age of 80 will increase by 12.6m (57.1%). This demographic process will have serious consequences for the public health and social care systems. This is why Europe focuses on active ageing incentives. One of the paths to do this is to support the older people in their efforts to keep their good health and to lead an independent life through an adapted living and communal environment, which will allow them to remain in their own homes for as long as possible.