Combating the digital divide affecting the seniors:
let’s cooperate for e-Inclusion of Seniors
and Healthy and Active Aging
As digital world is expanding and playing a growing part in our existence it remains primarily adapted and oriented to younger generations. Older people find themselves increasingly isolated as more services, information and activities become transformed into a digital format, being more distant and non personal.
Governments continue to invest in the development of broadband infrastructures supporting the expending use of the internet. They also try to encourage the training of users within different sub-populations, but excluded populations continue to grow as a result of factors not necessarily taken into account initially, such as ageing and immigration.
Comparing the situation in European countries, one can identify a wide variation in the ages of dependency onset as well as in the level of inclusion/exclusion of older people in digital life, their capacity to identify opportunities and benefit from them.
This project proposes to create a community/network bringing together players in the field of Seniors′ ICT Training. This community aims at influencing the development of solidarity and cohesion in the European population.
Supporting the use of new technology among the older populations through adequate training and supported by new technology based solutions it will promote:
• Active aging
• Fighting the segregation of seniors
• Facilitating longer life in their own homes
• Intergenerational communication
• Solutions development & applications
Building on the synergy between its members, this network will stimulate the transfer of knowledge and exchange of best practices as well as working groups to develop and promote new ideas and solutions.
The impact of such a European Network can be much stronger than any local initiative.