Brief description of the opportunity

An interactive platform connecting (younger) people that are working on developing new solutions with older people that want to support and/or invest in business development and share experience with the younger generation or be involved in test-bed activity. Objectives include:

• Support the early development of new product and services
• Provide test-bed access to test new products and services
• Increase market access by engaging by engaging older people in product/service development
• Increase access to (older) investors
• Bridge the gap between product development in the Silver Economy and (wide-spread) market access

The platform should be a trusted market and meeting place where older people can find opportunities to engage in business developments, at their own pace, at their own place. Older people can bring expertise and financial support, to the benefit of younger people. Benefits to older people include:

• Access to new products – free of charge
• Engage in business ideas/share knowledge
• Options to invest in new business – promote silver crowd funding
• Become knowledgeable about new product/service developments

Barriers and market failures

The evolution of ICT systems and the large number of R&D activities linked to the Silver Economy resulted in various solid solutions that can support the independent living of senior citizens. Some of the products and services that are currently on the market are not financially sustainable, given the high costs and the difficulty to get them subsidized by national health systems. There also exists opportunity for the development of radically new products and services. Due to the lack of an integrated ecosystem that can support -or even finance- the deployment of such solutions, entrepreneurs are seeking for disruptive business models to address this market. An integrated platform or ecosystem should involve all that will have direct or indirect benefits from the use of such solutions. It is generally difficult to link the younger and older generation in such fragmented market. The interactive platform can help overcome market fragmentation and bring stakeholders closer with the aim of contributing to the development of new products and services for the silver economy. The aim would be to create a platform to:

• Get older people more engaged in identifying potential funding opportunities
• Identify partners who would like to collaborate in these areas
• Provide access to older population to participate in pilot/test-bed
• Provide access to funding
• Overcome the mismatch between older people with time and ideas but not connection to employment
• Contribute to the development of user-friendly products and (IT) solutions
  • ­Older people do not necessarily have a good grasp of the technologies per se. Potential development (particularly eHealth / mHealth / telemedicine) to have both a non-specialist description and hypertext links to new technologies, expressed in similar levels of language. As potential end-users older people need to be able to interpret and then offer functional observations /views of the proposed emerging or near-market solutions
• Contribute to the development of common standards

Moreover, the platform could contribute to overcome the market gap between the development of new ICT solutions and bringing these solutions to the market. A lot of (older) people are not familiar with ICT nor the safe use of ICT and because of that, they don't buy or use it. To have trained people to help older people at home with the installation and use of ICT creates jobs. Also an opportunity is to work on internet safety and cyber security in Europe. The platform could also explore way keep older people from being exposed to abuses or scams.

Market prospects – size, growth trends and scalability

An interactive platform to fast-track product and service development in relation to the Silver Economy can generate numerous benefits:

• Increase financial access;
• Engage older people in entrepreneurial activities in a variety of areas both commercial and social - creating incubator environments or co-operatives where people can come together to incubate and test ideas;
• Help evaluate 'fitness for purpose' before huge investments are made in prototypes or scarce resources are deployed;
• Increase the creation of new and innovative products and services for the silver economy;
• Help scale up product and service developments for the silver economy;
• Help generate new start-ups, jobs and growth;
• Generate changes in consumption, such as older citizens buying more products online, increasing the Silver Economy

The degree to which such impacts are materialised is dependent on the volume of members of the interactive network, and the degree to which these members are mobilised to join forces.

Challenges - identified need for action

• Older people have time to contribute to business development. The average employment rate of 55-64-year-old in the OECD is 58.5%, substantially lower than the average employment rate of the 25-49 year old in the OECD, which is 76%. Amongst EU member states the employment rate of the 55-64 year old is highest in Sweden, where approximately 75% are employed and it is lowest in Greece where only 35% are employed.
• Older people are able to invest in new product and service developments. Given their accumulated resources, those aged 50+ represent an excellent potential source of investment. Older people can invest (Europe has relatively low rates of informal investors: 4% EU average compared with 6% in the US) or acquire business.
• Older people have experience and knowledge and ideas about what products and services could help improve they lives 

Added value of EU action

The EC works on various horizontal issues in relation to the Silver Economy. An interactive platform to fast-track product and service development could be a core initiative, building on other similar initiatives at the EU level and at the national level. The advantage of operating at the EU level would be:

• Mobilise interest from older adults and upcoming product and service developers from across the EU
• Mobilise key stakeholders from across the EU
• Provide opportunity for a level playing field in the Silver Economy
• Establish a single intergenerational access point for Europe
• Establish a large EU wide consumer panel of older adults
• Learn from best practices from various member states
• Set standards and guidelines for ethics and the protection of privacy and data security

Existing or planned initiatives to build on

• The French Retirement and Occupational Health Insurance Agency of Languedoc-Roussillon (Carsat LR), launched an interactive platform for new technology home services (over €1M for 2015) that rallies over 10 actors of the Silver Economy currently developing personalised ICT tools to improve the safety and comfort of seniors as well as the coordination between health and social care. The aim is to increase legibility as well as technical and financial access to innovations for vulnerable people who are remote from the digital era, through a multiservice user-friendly platform. This platform objective is to provide information and digital service at the right time to the right person. 800 Carsat retirees will be testing these new devices and solutions which will be provided to them without charge for two years.
• One of the programmes under the French Silver Economy sectoral agreement is the Forum of living labs (Forum des "Living Labs pour la Silver Autonomie" (LLSA)). This forum aims at bringing living labs together and generating at least 10 innovations per year in the Silver Economy field. This initiative supports the creation of an activity structure for the living labs network; sets up an information area and shared workspace, organises conferences at national level, facilitates access of living labs to major international events related to the Silver Economy.
• The Ireland Smart Ageing Exchange (ISAX) in a new independent network working in multiple sectors (e.g. functional food, housing, health). Programmes of ISAX include test beds to trial new products and services and a design shop to provide a ‘voice of the consumer’ for market design and expertise. ISAX is able to link needs, including needs of the older and more frail members of society, with economic opportunity. Concretely, the ‘consumer insight’ programme offers opportunity for industry to run focus groups involving older people, and to learn about the attitudes and behaviours of older people via a survey. The ISAX network is not entirely freely accessibly, companies and other organisation pay membership to access the consumer insight programme (fee of €15k).
• Elderscamp is a network that targets older people that has been launched in India and is currently being developed for Europe.
• The Newcastle Institute for Ageing runs a consumer panel that comprises of older adults. The institute works with, amongst other, VOICE North, the North East Dementia Alliance, and EIT Health. The aim of the collaboration is to:
  • better understand the needs of our partners and their environment
  • help partners access our unique knowledge base in ageing
  • support the delivery of new policy, products, services and solutions
• Other Universities in the UK have involved in related activities. Panels of older and older frail people have also been run at the University of Dundee, eg testing the effectiveness of supplements to improve muscle strength. The University of Bath works on Designability and eg Technology for People living with Cognitive Impairments and Dementia. 

Recommended EU policy actions

DG SANCO, CNECT, EMPL and the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA) are already involved in various closely related activities. The EC together with the network around EIP-AHA can:

• Provide an interactive platform that allows for multidisciplinary meetings, idea sharing, and is a safe space for experts and investors
• Contribute to raise awareness amongst older consumers’ product/service developers and investors support match-making and mutual learning between stakeholders
• Mobilise stakeholders including national and regional authorities
• Support access to safe and secure start-up funding with help from the older investors as well as other funding opportunities
• Link with eg ISAX/Carsat LR to scale this idea up and develop EU panels of consumers
• Develop supportive guidelines, standards and accreditation schemes for the products and services under development
• Set standards and guidelines for ethics and the protection of privacy and data security
• Promote synergies with other sectors

Key stakeholders

The platform would be open to all interest. To gain momentum the plat form would benefit from endorsement by key stakeholders including:

• European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA) has launched a repository of innovative practices as part of the European scaling–up strategy. The Interactive platform could be linked with this repository and the stakeholders involved. There also is a dedicated webpage with resources for scaling up your innovation where it is possible to submit a project.
• Platforms for the older adults, eg Age Platform Europe
• National/regional networks for older people
• Online networks for older people, for example the Italian network Intrage.it is a network where the over 50, that focuses on building opportunities for dialogue and encounters
• Government
• Investors
• Universities