v3 from 1-Aug-2011

The LECCE Declaration

[1] 1 Ambient Assisted Living: a Social Necessity and an Economic Opportunity

[2] [.1] Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) systems refer to intelligent, accessible and user friendly systems [.2] that support people to lead healthy and independent lives while ageing [.3] and facilitate the sustainability and efficiency of social systems for ageing [1]. [.4] AAL systems are motivated by the escalating costs forecasted by OECD [.5] resulting from the ageing populations all over the world, [.6] but especially in Japan, US and Europe [2]. [.7] Several challenging problems are expected to emerge due to these developments [.8] that might reach critical dimensions if solution-finding is not speeded up.

[3] [.1]AAL systems can help support older people in various application domains [3]: [.2]at work, as citizens will remain active and productive for a longer time, with an improved quality of work; [.3]in the community, by staying socially active and creative through ICT solutions; [.4]at home, by enjoying a healthier and higher quality of daily life for a longer time, assisted by technology, while maintaining a high degree of independence, autonomy, and dignity.

[4] [.1]With a growing market potential in terms of both demand (population of potential customers) and supply (variety of potential applications), [.2]AAL systems constitute a significant economic opportunity in addition to being a social necessity ([.3]cf. also estimations in [2], e.g., about the wealth of Europeans over 65 having a revenue of over € 3000 billion, and about the market for smart homes applications to triple between 2005 and 2020) .

[5] 2 Inclusion and AAL are Integral Parts of the Digital Agenda for Europe

[6] [.1]Inclusion and AAL systems are integral parts of the Digital Agenda for Europe [4]. [.2]Further to the 2006 Riga Ministerial Declaration on e-Inclusion policy [5], the European Commission has defined an ageing well action plan [6] and a European strategy in ICT for Ageing Well [2]. [.3]The result is a series of measures that involve more than one billion euro in research and development between 2006 and 2013: [.4]the Seventh Framework programme [7] funds longer-term research and development, [.5]the AAL Joint Programme [8] is dedicated to market-oriented R&D and [.6]the ICT Policy Support Programme within the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP ICT PSP) [9] supports initiatives with deployment priorities.

[7] [.1]Finally, the European Council has endorsed the Commission’s proposal for an Innovation Union, in particular the launch of a pilot European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing [1]. [.2]This has been followed further by the new Joint Programming Initiative of European States “addressing a global megatrend” called “More years, better lives” [?10].

[8] 3 Call for Complementary Political Measures

[9] [.1]In spite of a considerable amount of measures and actions since several years, breakthroughs in terms of widespread availability and deployment of AAL systems are yet to be achieved. [.2]Therefore, and based on potential barriers investigated in [11], this declaration highlights the need for complementary political measures in the following three areas.

[10] 3.1 Coordinating Demand-Supply Interactions

[11] [.1]The current situation is characterized by a lack of proper interactions between demand (formal and informal care providers, seniors, insurance companies) and supply (research, innovative industry, SMEs). [.2]There are also counter-productive interactions occurring in the demand-supply chain, sometimes forcing stakeholders into artificial interactions ([.3]cf. when in the car industry, for instance, the car driver had to directly interact with the supplier of the electronic engine control system) .

[12] [.1]To address this, supply chains are often structured into separate ecosystems. [.2]Applied to the AAL market, the following ecosystems can be identified in the ICT-related demand-supply chains:

[13] the service ecosystem, where demand is represented by citizens and their service providers and supply by application developers and integrators,
[14] the technology ecosystem, where demand is represented by application developers and integrators while supply is represented by other technology providers such as hardware and software platform providers.

[15] We call for measures for the coordination of demand-supply interactions in AAL research programmes, which take into account both the service and the technology ecosystems, while ensuring their interoperability, their financial sustainability and their overall support of the end user needs .

[16] 3.2 Building Interoperability

[17] [.1]First, given the complexity and diversity of the domain, interoperability is a challenging feature of AAL systems. [.2]Second, AAL solutions today are provided in an emerging and fragmented market where the AAL industry cannot yet rely on a well-established community of major industrial stakeholders that invest in and agree on common standards .

[18] We call for measures to help building interoperability. In particular,

[19] [.1]supply-side building blocks within the technology ecosystem should be open and available. [.2]Their interfaces should be public, and interaction protocols should be known and agreed in the ecosystem. [.3]Further, it should be possible to use technology building blocks developed elsewhere in the framework programme (e.g. future internet platform). [.4]This would necessitate the coordination of the multiple existing platform initiatives [.5]so that the AAL community does not fall into the trap of relying on isolated technology hardly capable of being integrated into the big picture of future technologies .
[20] [.1]Application within the service ecosystem should be interoperable. In particular, there is need for a long-term consensus building process, possibly for decades, that takes into account the evolving nature of applications.

[21] 3.3 Building Sustainable Ecosystems

[22] [.1]While the current R&D programme including IST FPs, AAL JP, and CIP ICT PSP is comprehensive, [.2]it focuses on heterogeneous proof of concepts [.3]which must be integrated according to envisioned ecosystems. [.4]We see a need for funded activities [.5]that bridge the gap between R&D and product launching (for SMEs in particular). [.6]This includes the following aspects: [.7]ecosystem design, [.8]stress testing e.g. through living labs, [.9]ecosystem compliance and interoperability tests, [.10]ecosystem marketing, [.11]tool support, [.12]lean development process and life-cycle management of products, [.13]as well as education and training for developers and installers. [.14]An appropriate funding scheme is required [.15]that facilitates the involvement of SMEs, tool developers, and academic institutions.

[23] We call for measures to integrate into the research programmes topics that relate to building sustainable ecosystems.

References

Changes compared to v2 from 18-Jul-2011:

– edited by Antonio Kung with the following comments: Nearly all comments from Marius improve the reading and the content. I have added one picture to take into account Kush comments on ecosystems. I have eliminated the notion of financial ecosystems (not that it does not exist, but it makes the text more confusing). I have also simplified the names of the ecosystem (service ecosystem and technology ecosystem).

– further edits by Saied Tazari with the following comments: (1) AAL definition adapted according to my own comments on the previous version, (2) combined Marius’s suggestion with the v2 way of justifying that AAL constitutes an economical opportunity, (3) added reference to AMB11 as referemce for “investigations on potential barriers”, (4) emphasized that the identified ecosystems consider the ICT-related aspects so that the elimination of the disputed “financial ecosystem” does not cause more discussions, (5) minor additional edits, and (6) adapted the reference list