AMCOSOP

AMCOSOP project is aimed at elderly people, with the goal of reducing their loneliness and fear of isolation. This will be accomplished by providing its users a sense of presence with their relatives, friends, and health care personnel, and assuring that the elderly are never left alone.

In this project a software platform for managing communication and user-friendly terminal devices is developed. Information from people in the safety net is collected and displayed in visible form to the elderly, giving them the ability to decide when to initiate social connections, other activities or connect to a service provided by the system.

With the system it is also possible to connect independently living people to service networks available in their region. As a new system is developed it brings new business opportunities for system developers, system administrators as well as for local system service integrators.

Objectives

Project goals are:

To develop a novel communication interface for the elderly, and to introduce it to them through thorough field trials;
To implement the project in the following phases: preparation, user requirement probes, system definition, subsystem development (hardware,software,services) and implementation, integration, user testing and evaluation, dissemination;
To enable project partners to use their expertise for developing and validating a system for elderly people in an international environment;

Expected results and impact

There are several potential users for the AMCOSOP system:

System integrators and developers, who would commercialise the system;
End user organisations, who can offer the system and its services to elderly people living in both rural and urban areas;
System operators and ICT service centres, who would be responsible for the IT infrastructure and the AMCOSOP service platform;
Local service providers and healthcare people that function as last points of contact
Manufacturers and turn-key concept providers;
International research and development actors;

Partners

Partners involved in the AMCOSOP project

Organization	Type	Country	Website
Tampere University of Technology	R&D	Finland	www.tut.fi
Center for Usability Research & Engineering	R&D	Austria	www.cure.at
Space Hellas S.A.	SME	Greece	www.space.gr
Saint George S.A.	SME	Greece	www.agge.gr
Pirkanmaan Senioripalvelu Oy	SME	Finland	www.pirkanmaansenioripalvelut.fi

Project name: Ambient Communication for Sense of Presence
Website: http://www.amcosop.eu/
Coordinator: Prof. Jukka Vanhala, Tampere University of Technology (Finland)
Duration: 30 Months
Starting Date: 01.10.2010
Total budget: € 2.406.849
Public contribution: € 1.601.616

Contact

Prof. Jukka Vanhala

E.: jukka.vanhala@tut.fi

T.: +358 3 3115 11