By the year 2026, 21.6 per cent of the world's population will be older than 65, 32 per cent of which will have some kind of disability.
Official data confirm that the percentage of elderly people will increase dramatically within the next years: by 2050 there will be 180 per cent more people older than 80 than today.
Guided by these figures, the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade , through its CENIT programme, targeted at fostering cooperation between the private and the public sectors for the development of technological innovations, has granted a 20 million euro subsidy to the research and development project "AmIVital: digital personal environment for health and wellbeing".
Seventeen Spanish top Information and Communication Technology companies and research groups participate in AmIVital. From the private side, SIEMENS will be the leader of this project in which other companies take part, such as Telef'nica R&D, Telvent Interactiva, Ericsson Spain, Eptron, CPI , Central de Procesos Inform'ticos, Acerca Comunicaciones y Sistemas and Arizone. Public stakeholders will include the association ITACA , Instituto de Aplicaciones de las TIC Avanzadas (TSB Group), CARTIF Foundation, Hospital Universitario Puerta de Hierro Biomedical Research Foundation, Rioja Salud Foundation, Carlos III Health Institute and the universities of Malaga, Polytechnic of Madrid, Saragossa and Granada, through its department of Computer Architecture headed by professor Alberto Prieto Espinosa.
The official presentation of the project took place on May 8th, at the University of Granada where the head of the University Department of Research, professor Rafael Pay, Albert, highlighted that AmIVital is the second economic project in the history of this institution, with an investment of more than 850,000 euros.
A breakthrough in remote assistance