The second
annual Technology for Healthy Ageing and Wellbeing (THAW) event: Healthy ageing
within your reach. Shaping new technologies to support mental wellbeing for
older people took place last week.
Building on the success of the first event in 2015, more than 50 attendees including professionals, charities, service providers, researchers and older people from across the country joined us for the day in The Diamond to shape new technologies for mental wellbeing.
With a packed agenda the day, led by Professor Arlene Astell and THAW PhD students Jake Andrews, Matt Bennion and Dave Clayton, delegates engaged in a number of activities. The day started with a case study exercise, with each group making recommendations for older people in various situations before sharing ideas with the room.
Activity two “The Future is Now” got the room on their feet excitably testing and feeding back on new technologies including MiRo the companion robot dog, The Pacifica app and Virtual Reality equipment Vive which was kindly borrowed from The Diamond. This interactive element to the day sparked many conversations about the technologies and exciting ideas about how they could evolve in the coming years.
After a well-deserved break and lunchtime networking, we heard from all three THAW PhD students to learn more about their research, findings and progress.
The final activity saw the attendees drawing on what had been discovered throughout the day in a technology invention test. Using a ‘larder’ of different technological devices and solutions, each table worked to co-create a new product or service to support wellbeing in later life before feeding back to the group where the winner: “Virtual Learning Library” was awarded the prize.
The day was a great success with delegate comments including “this event took a refreshing approach to a very informative day”.
The third THAW event will be held in Spring 2017. If you would like to be added to the mailing list to hear first when registration opens, please contact Laura Murray on l.murray@sheffield.ac.uk.
Please see the THAW pages here:
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