The project will give furniture companies inspiration and a common identity, it will enhance their knowledge and competences, and increase their capability to work in a transnational environment. Consequently it will enhance their capacity of innovation to create smart products adapted to senior needs, making the companies more innovative and competitive. This is a unique opportunity to raise seniors’ comfort and level of safety and at the same time enhance capacity of innovation.
Summary
The problem of aging societies went unnoticed and neglected for many years. The market offer of products adapted to seniors’ needs is fragmented or almost non-existent. Now is the time to change that. In order to tackle this demographic challenge the BSR needs to be strong in transnational cooperation and cross-sectorial specialisation. Experts from different BSR countries and various disciplines must be united and work together to transform this challenge into fascinating business opportunity for enterprises in the region. Knowing the strength of creativity that exists in the BSR is empowering.
There is a unique opportunity to raise seniors’ comfort and level of safety and at the same time enhance capacity of innovation. With broad competencies of leading BSR actors in the field of furniture, design, technology, ICT and robotics, economy and social sciences we will develop state of the art solutions making the BSR stronger.
Aspirations to improve the quality of life of older citizens in the BSR can actually empower SMEs in the furniture industry. Therefore, the project will provide companies with ICT based tools, applications and databases, which are innovative and have been developed in a translational environment.
Cross-sectorial specialisation is the foundation for creative working methods for product design and development in furniture safety, reliability, specific needs and preferences of seniors and the problems they face while using furniture.
The project will create synergies between the traditional furniture industry and innovative ICT solutions in the process of cross-sectorial specialisation. The project will give BSR furniture companies inspiration and a common identity, it will enhance their knowledge and competences, and increase their capability to work in a transnational environment. Consequently it will enhance their capacity of innovation to create smart products adapted to senior needs, making the companies more innovative and competitive.
Highlights by mid-term:
The project has created prototypes of smart furniture adapted to specific needs of the elderly people, such as the smart chair, the skirting board with the integrated fall detection system or the “magic mirror” displaying personalised messages regarding the state of health of a person looking into the mirror.
In order to be able to design and create such pieces of furniture, the project partners and all interested actors, like students, designers and companies from Poland, Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Norway, first tested an age simulator developed in the form of a suit, which enables to feel the limitations of an aging body. The suit is fully 3D downloadable and printable, and it will be available in the Virtual Library created by the project at a later stage for anyone interested to use it.
EUSBSR flagship
