Brussels, 4 March 2010
Following on the joint ICT Networking Session organized by BRAID (http://braidproject.org/), universAAL (http://universaal.org/) and OASIS (http://www.oasis-project.eu/) during the ICT Conference in Brussels (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf/ict2010/item-display.c...), the BRAID consortium has confirmed a decision to join the AALOA community. AALOA is already supported by universAAL and OASIS projects, and BRAID expects to undertake a number of initiatives within AALOA to share and encourage discussion of its early results within the AALOA community, enhancing the dissemination impacts of each.
BRAID (Bridging Research in Ageing and ICT Development) is an EU FP7 Support Action aimed at developing a comprehensive Research and Technological Development (RTD) roadmap for active ageing, by consolidating existing roadmaps and by describing and launching a stakeholder co-ordination and consultation mechanism. The project’s aims are to characterise key research challenges and produce a vision for a comprehensive approach in supporting the well-being and socio-economic integration of increasing numbers of senior citizens in Europe. BRAID is building upon the experience and knowledge developed in previous projects, namely AALIANCE, CAPSIL, ePAL, and SENIOR, while taking account of e-inclusion efforts in the EU27 as well as Australia, Canada, Japan and the US.
Managing Director of Global Security Intelligence, Kush Wadhwa, one of the BRAID partners, noted that “one of the key efforts of BRAID is to bring together stakeholders that are impacting the development of technologies for the elderly, help to establish a common vision, and drive towards a roadmap that will advance that vision over the coming decade. We see the work of AALOA as highly complementary to these goals, and look forward to working actively with the AALOA community to address the many challenges in this area.”
AALOA (AAL Open Association ) is a growing community interested to find effective solutions to the research and market challenges posed by the Ambient Assisted Living. Various research projects funded by the EU FP6 and FP7 research programmes have started to discuss about common needs and to share ideas in the AAL field. Seven of these projects (MonAMI, OASIS, OsAmI-commons, PERSONA, SOPRANO, universAAL and WASP) have joined forces and decided to start a convergence process in order to build a common platform for the standardization of AAL systems. This joint goal and first activities in the field have resulted in the joint support of the incorporation of AALOA. The mission of AALOA, expressed in the AALOA Manifesto (http://www.aaloa.org/manifesto), is to provide a shared open framework for developers, technology and service providers, research institutions, and end user associations to discuss, design, develop, evaluate and standardize a common service platform for Ambient Assisted Living.
