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Cáritas Coimbra will participate, for the third consecutive year, in AAL Forum, which will take place this year in Aarhus – Denmark, from 23-26 September.

Carina Dantas and Ana Luísa Jegundo from the Innovation Department are members of the AAL Forum Organizing Committee for the second time, having participated in several meetings throughout the year to outline the program and guidelines for this year’s event. Cáritas Coimbra hosted the 3rd meeting, at its headquarters in Coimbra, on April 11 and 12. Flávia Rodrigues and Natália Machado from the same department will also participate in this annual conference that presents the latest technological advances for the ageing population, from robots and games to applications and sensors, products that focus on quality of life, greater independence, socialization and sustainability of the social and health system.

At the same time, Cáritas Coimbra will promote at the conference Workshop 8 – “Smart Healthy Age Friendly Environments and the Blueprint for Digital Transformation of Health and Care”, a joint AAL session with EIP on AHA. This session will be attended by Carina Dantas, Willeke van Staalduinen (AFEdemy) and Javier Ganzarain (AFEdemy), coordinators of the European Network SHAFE (Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments). This Workshop will present a summary of the SHAFE Joint Statement and a brief presentation of the conclusions of SHAFE’s mission to achieve smart and age-friendly accessible environments. This workshop runs from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm on September 24.

In workshop 17 – “How do we attract big private & public buyers to the AAL solutions?”, Ana Luísa Jegundo will attend as speaker, discussing how can the experience iof running AAL projects attract investment and commercial interest in AAL solutions. This session, which will take place on 25th at 9:00 am, will bring together startups and endorsers, crossing their opinions to create a powerful silver economy ecosystem. Cáritas Coimbra will share its experience in the DAPAS project, which brings together successful AAL solutions that combined in a single product can be distributed on a larger scale to improve the quality of life for many people.

On the same day, at 4:00 pm, Cáritas Coimbra will share its knowledge under the data privacy ethics and policy, in workshop 29 – Ethics, data and privacy protection: who will take responsibility and how we proceed to a common framework for IT-AHA in Europe?. In addition to previous experience in coordinating work related to ethics and deontology on issues associated to the introduction of robotics in daily life and data security and privacy, Cáritas Coimbra is also currently active in this area, within the scope of Smartwork project, funded by the European Union, under Horizon 2020. Throughout the project, an article has been developed that provides solutions to address ethical issues arising from the use of new technologies by older people in the work environment.

Cáritas Coimbra will also disseminate other projects during the event, its ambitions in terms of results and experiences, as well as sharing good practices among partners, such as the case of Lifebots.