Open Workshop for Online (Senior) Communities
Europe is ageing: the EU’s population is set to reach 517 million in 2060, by which time nearly a third of us will be aged 65 or over. This shift requires a fundamental transformation in how we view and approach the ageing process.
Senior citizens represent an increasingly vital and active part of our societies. Yet few organizations have recognized this demographic shift; fewer still have reached out to this group to ensure their social inclusion, via new technologies for instance.
New technologies play an increasingly important role in all our daily lives, and offer senior citizens many opportunities for socializing and communicating, particularly via online communities. However, many elderly people fear or misunderstand technology, preventing them from engaging online with friends, peers and services.
This workshop aims to gather a range of concerned organizations to identify common problems and best practices. It will develop new strategies to promote, brand and market online communities for senior citizens, and will address strategies of volunteer management, since online communities and learning centres for senior citizens rely so much on volunteers.
Additionally, the workshop aims to network with various organizations and participants that offer IT learning or online communities for senior citizens. We welcome registrations from both non-profit and for-profit organizations, as well as practitioners working in the area of senior communities, online platforms, healthcare organizations and all other organizations and companies that offer products and services for older customer groups.
This workshop will be held entirely in English and is organized by the Third Age Online (TAO) project (www.thirdageonline.eu), which is funded by the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) programme of the European Commission.
Venue: Keizer Karelplein 19, Maastricht, conference room
Date: 22 May 2013
Time: 10:00 - 16:00 CEST