It's been a busy week that reflects growing interest in aging and new technologies. Just after the third annual Louisville Innovation Summit, some of the attendees and/or exhibitors dashed to San Francisco for the Aging 2.0 Optimize event. The founders, Stephen Johnston and Katy Fike, launched Aging 2.0 in 2012 'to pick up the pace of innovation that benefits older adults.' The program includes the Generator Ventures fund, an 'Academy' to cultivate classes annual classes of startups, distributed worldwide events, and competitions that feature finalists who participate in pitch competitions. Their flagship and well-attended Optimize event concluded today in San Francisco – with five of the exhibiting/pitching startups featured below. Information is from their websites or press materials:
Debuted just last month at the prestigious NIC Conference in Washington, DC, Blue Willow is already causing a buzz in the senior living and health care space. In a recent issue of Forbes Magazine (9/28/16), the discussion is around three industries that will be transformed by intelligent technology, including health care. Blue Willow is poised for that revolution.
Innovation featured in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, known for the Kentucky Derby and Bourbon, has also emerged as one of the aging care headquarter cities in the US, with some of largest providers of aging care services -- like Kindred, Signature, Atria, as well as Humana and Delta Dental, among others. This is the third year of the Louisville Innovation Summit – which provides a platform for the sponsoring organizations as well as a forum for startups and an innovation competition. Announced by the city's mayor Greg Fischer at the event, Louisville was just named as an Age Friendly Communities by one of the event's sponsors, AARP, using the framework that originated by the World Health Organization Among those exhibiting were Pharmerica, GrandCare, and LifeBio. The event also included some of the very (very) newest. All information is from the companies' or Summit website):
San Diego-based Reflexion Health, which offers physical therapy programs that leverage Microsoft Kinect for Windows, has raised $18 million in its series B round of funding from undisclosed investors.
Americans are worried about the risk of seniors falling. It’s a YARP ("Yet Another Research Project"). Yay. Carnegie Mellon researchers have provided this 2016 insight based on a survey -- accompanying their engineering project to 'solve' the problem. Coined to describe those special projects run by professors and grad students who appeared to have no access to the Internet to see what others have already developed and commercialized. But they have significant grant money that has yet to run out.
PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering conducted a survey on falls among the elderly, and discovered that Americans are very worried about their elderly parent falling—and that this worry leads to action.
An age-friendly event in young Boston. Last week, LeadingAge returned to Boston after an absence of 23 years, now that the city has a convention center that can hold the 8500 attendees. Perhaps more remarkable, is the desire of the city to become age and dementia-friendly, as opined by the Mayor, Marty Walsh, who received a citation for such efforts. For convention attendees, that may need some more work. The pedestrian walk time duration near the convention center was just enough time to (walk quickly) and only reach the road's median. No surprise – as the town is for the young, and this new area was likely designed by them: Boston's median resident age is 31.7. The event exhibition hall was the expected mix of food service providers, furnishings, bathroom supplies, technology suppliers, and health-related products for the senior living industry. There were quite a few sizable technology companies known in the CCRC/Senior Housing market, including CDW, Stanley Healthcare, Panasonic, LG CNS, Hamilton CapTel, IN2L, SimpleC, Care Innovations. Here are just five new technologies drawn from the event, with the material from the company websites:
