PHArA-ON: The PHArA-ON approach of mapping technologies within active and assisted living (AAL)

The technology providers within the PHArA-ON consortium will provide technologies that address the previously identified challenges in each of the pilot regions in Spain (Andalusia and Murcia), Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia. These solutions are tackling issues in the field of active and assisted living (AAL) and will finally be presented on an online platform called CATAALOG. In order to gather necessary information, a structured approach for mapping the most important categories was chosen.

PHArA-ON brings together AAL technology providers on the one hand and potential users and other stakeholders like caretakers or family members on the other. Involving key market and innovation players as well as providing information about their existing or upcoming products and services in a curated way is one of the main strategies to increase the exploitation prospects of the PHArA-ON project. Such an approach allows a comprehensive assessment of good practices, ongoing activities as well as capabilities of the EU in the Healthy Ageing market. This creates a holistic market overview that paves the path for innovation opportunities. It ensures that the developed solutions can be applied in practice and meet the market demand of the growing ageing population.

Development of the Median Age in the EU

In a first step, information on the technological solutions already existing within the PHArA-ON consortium had to be identified, collected and categorised. For this mapping, a structured approach was applied. The main principle of this approach is to identify and contact relevant stakeholders, implement a monitoring repository, provide data extraction templates, gather and present the data in a user-friendly and approachable form, and facilitate the connection between technology providers and the regional pilots.

This approach consists of the following steps:

  • Collecting data and creating a first overview of challenges and offers – As a first step, all the industry partners from the PHArA-ON consortium who will provide technologies (platforms and products) that aim to address the numerous challenges identified at each pilot region have been identified and contacted. A common online table with access for all project partners served as a central monitoring repository. Besides the names, it included a first classification of the technology they provide and the existing challenges in the respective pilot regions.
  • Gathering more and structured technical data in order to create technology profiles – In a next step, each partner got a data extraction template. This was to collect relevant data on each technology, including technology category, commercial and functional information as well as information on which and how of the PHArA-ON challenges are being addressed.
  • Connecting technology providers with six regional pilots – In order to present the gathered data in a user-friendly and approachable form, a password protected online repository was created. This facilitated the connection between the technology providers and the regional pilots and will provide structured data for the initial population of the CATAALOG platform.
  • Integrating the results into the CATAALOG – To define the pilot scenarios, the gathered information from all technology providers was structured and made easily accessible for the entire consortium. In the end, the identified datasets could be defined as basis entries for the CATAALOG.

The big range and differences between products and services made it difficult to keep an overview of which technology addresses which identified challenges best in the respective pilot region. Nevertheless, even more solutions will be needed to address all the identified challenges at the pilot sites.

Links
https://www.pharaon.eu/
https://twitter.com/PharaonProject
http://fb.me/pharaon.project
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEJv9C3T–xLXCldYaBWeQ
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pharaonproject/
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12335464/
Keywords
Technology mapping, active and assisted living (AAL), data collection, categorisation, pilots, older adults, smart wearables, AI, cloud computing, big data, intelligence analytics, platforms, standards, marketplace