SPERO - Social Communication Platform for Seniors

Seniors living in their home face a great risk of loneliness. The risk is much higher when the extended family is not living in the same house. Usually they are linked to the local environment through church visits, doctor visits, grocery shop, newspapers and television. The project develops an innovative social communication platform and end-user device designed for seniors who can easily communicate to everybody who joins the platform. They are able to read news; they can be immediately informed on the local events, sport activities, clubs’ activities. It can be used also as a reminder. The end-user device is designed to have only five buttons. It is connected to TV since it is senior’s prime display in the house. By implementing new communication channel to seniors, and sourcing multiple digital communication channels of senior’s friends, family, local community and care organization, we can tackle the social isolation problem raised by the introduction of the digital communication in the society. The triple helix cooperation (citizen, business, research) bring to action an awarded prototype of communication platform combined with end-user five-button device, which was positively evaluated by end users. The end user helix were representing in the design, prototyping and testing phase. They have done the needs assessment, help in the design of the prototype and do the final testing. The next step is to design the commercially successful product.