SANTA CLARA, CA – The Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit announced today the six finalists of the Business Plan Competition, which entices entrepreneurs from around the world to showcase their innovative ideas, products, and services for the Boomer and aging market. The finalists will present their plans at the 12th annual summit, to be held June 30 at Santa Clara University.
The more innovation there is, the more some things don’t change. Stroll through this Aging 2.0 Summit link – and you will see pages of logos of new, newer, and newest companies trying to make a technology or product that could be used to serve seniors – or perhaps help those who serve them. Or the AARP Health50 Live Pitch, or the Stanford Longevity Design Challenge or the Quintiles competition at Wake Forest in North Carolina. Yet again and again, the question bubbles up – can firms make money creating and selling technology or other innovations specifically designed for seniors?
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Apr 23, 2015) - eCaring, Inc. and Samsung Business Services™ today announced delivery of technology and services that enable healthcare providers to reduce costs, while enhancing the quality of patient care. eCaring's care and disease management solutions will use Samsung's advanced tablet technology and enterprise services to ensure 24/7 peak performance of all Samsung devices in the hands of patients and their healthcare aides.
The Electronic Caregiver Company, SameDay Security, Inc., has organized an innovative team of software development engineers, PhDs in Kinesiology, biomechanics engineers, medical professionals, and the resources of a $13M Senior Fall Research Laboratory at New Mexico State University. The latest Electronic Caregiver innovations are being designed for incorporation in smartphones like the iPhone 6, smart watches like Apple Watch, and wearable devices such as Google Glass.
These are tech transition times for everyone – including seniors and their devices. In case you didn’t see it, the Pew numbers about smartphone use are out – 27% of the 65+ have smartphones, up from 19% last year. Given the date of that data (from last fall), let’s just assume that this number is actually lower than today's reality. So why should a PERS reseller or manufacturer care? First because carriers don’t want to sell feature/clamshell phones any more. They make it difficult to even find them. They are selling smartphones to people who don’t want or use all of the features they have, but they’re buying them anyway because that is what they’re being sold. In retrospect, Philips Lifeline might have seen the near term PERS future – and it could be a smartphone – and thus an app. And thus -- why have more than one device? And why not pair a tiny pendant or clip to a smartphone? Or make a watch?
The AARP has launched an initiative as part of a move to roadtest mobile health apps and devices to determine if they fit the needs of its demographic, according to a statement from the organization. Project Catalyst includes collaborations with Pfizer and UnitedHealth. It’s also a response to the fact that the 100 million people aged 50 and older are the largest consumers of healthcare and the interest in pushing digital health companies to develop devices that are designed with them in mind.
