AgeTech. As much as you might think that media coverage has elevated the awareness of the subject, (notably over the last five years), whenever I introduce the term in conversations with people outside this professional knowledge area, I still wind up having to distill/demystify what it is.
So cutting to the chase here, for those of you not familiar enough, let me first steer you to the book by Keren Etkin – The AgeTech Revolution (2022).
For a quick distillation here though, I once more return to one of my favourite definitions I found in a snappy article What is Age Tech?by Andreea Toma, dated 2020 from UK based marketing agency Constellation Marketing.
Toma keeps it simple –“AgeTech is an emerging group of technologies which seeks to improve the lives of older adults.”
With that, as part of my ongoing effort to keep us all up to date, here is a brief AgeTech Autumn Almanac for 2024, a look at events in play after a relatively quiet summer. For those interested in keeping current on all the latest global activity in AgeTech, I suggest subscribing to The Gerontechnologist – AgeTech Digest published by Keren Etkin on a regular basis since 2019.
Coming up on Oct.24th at the AGE-WELL annual conferencein Edmonton, Alberta is the AGE-WELL National Impact Challenge: Solutions for Healthy Aging pitch competition which awards the top start-ups in Canada’s AgeTech sector. The lead sponsor is the Ontario Brain Institute with support as usual from Bereskin & Parr and the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI). I have followed this event since it has been in play from 2018.
One of the finalists that caught my eye in this National Impact Challenge is Incluzia– a Winnipeg based company “focused on advancing accessible housing through education, technology and collaboration.” One of their technology solutions MyHomeFX Pro is a digital health assessment and home evaluation tool designed for Occupational Therapists to “expedite client care plans and home modifications interventions.” For so many reasons, looking at this, it gets my vote.
Staying in Canada, up next on Nov.14th is the SE Health – Chrysalis Innovation Challenge Pitch Awards. This Innovation Challenge targets two groups, one defined as “Impact Builders”, open to start-ups and community-based organizations with products, services or programs for older adults; and the other defined as “Impact Ideators”, open to people interacting with older adults (individuals or small teams) who have innovative ideas tailored for older adults.
Meanwhile in the USA, also Nov.14, the AARP AgeTech Collaborative holds another of its Open Mic Challenge pitch events offered to start-ups out to fill a need in the AgeTech market, such as “financial resiliency, healthcare, accessibility, caregiving and other areas in the longevity space”.
Prior to this, on Oct.21st the AARP AgeTech Collaborative has a part in pitch competitions with the Healthcare Innovation HLTH organization alongside three other pitch groups, including one for health provider care coordination, and one for start-ups in the merging of healthcare and wellness. If the AARP has their eyes on the future of Etkin’s so called AgeTech revolution by participating in big events like this then you can be certain this is a solid market not to be ignored.
In another professional pocket, there is one of a number of ongoing projects within the International Standards Organization (ISO) in the ISO Ageing Societiescategory, the Working Group for an ageing-inclusive digital economy which is working towards a standard intended to provide general requirements and guidelines from the perspective of the needs of older persons and improve their accessible participation in that economy.
Let’s complete this almanac by going back. As a prelude to the autumn season the International Society of Gerontechnology (ISG)held its 14th conference in Germany. Just to confirm, there is a history to arriving at the term AgeTech. As far back as the 1970’s some engineers, industrial designers and gerontologists were curious and asked a question about how technology could join up with the field of aging studies. As noted in the 2009 publication Defining Gerontechnology for R&D Purposes– they “recognized the need for a conceptual framework.”
Along came the 1980’s, and the marriage of gerontology and technology – Gerontechnology. Originator of that term in 1988, Jan A.M. Graafmans was part of a research team in Eindhoven University of Technology, “that started an effort to develop a program of research and education in gerontechnology aiming at further integration of engineering sciences with those disciplines already involved in aging studies.”
As an inter-disciplinary, academic research field, Gerontechnology established itself in 1997 forming the ISG. At the 2024 ISG World Conference on Gerontechnology one of the featured speakers, Yongjie Yon – Technical Officer on Ageing & Health at the World Health Organization, spoke to “Integrating Digital Solutions in Age-Friendly Environments” in line with the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. Quoting from his LinkedIn post on this speech Yon states:
“Embracing the future of healthy ageing means integratingAI and assistive technologies into inclusive, age-friendly environments. From AI-driven health monitoring to virtual reality for dementia care, digital tools are transforming lives. But we must ensure these innovations are accessible, inclusive, and responsibly used to empower older adults, reduce inequalities, and support all generations.”
All this being said, hopefully the increased multiple offerings of digital solutions filling today’s competitive AgeTech market will be better adopted, and not be seen as a market for its own sake, but rather – after it sorts out the wheat from the chaff – an integral part of our daily lives. Endless pitch presentations as we have seen for numbers of years may roll on, but as I begin to see repetitive offerings I wonder – is there a time coming soon where we will see the market become more concentrated?
