The Forum 2019 executive summary is published
The AAL Forum took place in Aarhus, Denmark from 23-25 September. Aarhus is a city world-renowned for having embraced technology to help older people live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives in their own homes for as long as possible. Therefore, it was a wonderful opportunity to gather the AAL community in this very city.
The event welcomed more than 700 delegates to take part in exciting talks, interactive workshops, a buzzing exhibition with new technological advances, poster sessions, and many other opportunities for everyone to immerse themselves in a world of active and healthy ageing in Europe.
Read the executive summary of the Forum and learn more about the speakers, discussions and main themes of the Forum!
The event this year was made special by the fact that, for the first time, it was run in collaboration with the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA). This collaboration was reflected in three joint workshops, as well as plenary discussions involving both parties.
The exhibition hall was once again the focal point of the forum for networking, meeting and seeing the best that Europe has to offer in the world of active ageing. Set over two floors, it consisted of a wealth of projects and other actors demonstrating their latest products, services and idea to the people there. For the first time ever, AAL provided a number of guided tours through the exhibition, with participants able to select their area of particular interest and meet like-minded people.
As ever, the workshop sessions this year were all well received with a high level of interaction through a mixture of presentations, group discussions, panel debates and brainstorming breakouts. The dialogue and teachings were extremely rewarding and valuable lessons were learnt, with many discussions spilling out into coffee and lunch breaks. Highlights included a number of joint workshops co-hosted by AAL and EIP on AHA, as well as an “elevator pitch” session in which several projects had six minutes to sell their idea to a panel of investors.
The Forum was accompanied by a start-up competition, the Citizen Accelerator, which gathered start-ups from various European countries and developed solutions together with experts and end-users.
