Integrated approach to ageing in place / Moving towards user-driven solutions

SMU Associate Professor of Information Systems (Practice) and Academic Director of SMU-TCS iCity Lab Tan Hwee Pink highlighted the need to adopt an integrated approach to enable and sustain ageing in place. While he noted that the various voluntary welfare organisations, government ministries and agencies have been implementing a multitude of projects and initiatives to achieve this, he stressed that there are some limitations to these efforts. For instance, the existing elderly monitoring systems are not user-centric and do not operate with other home automation systems. Associate Prof Tan said that the cross-disciplinary team at the SMU-TCS iCity Lab, a joint venture between the Singapore Management University and Tata Consultancy Services, focused on research and development of intelligent and inclusive city solutions.  He added that the lab is taking the lead to strengthen the integration of ambient intelligence systems and care provisioning through research and development collaboration with various partners, including the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), as well as key end-user stakeholders, including GoodLife!, the Eastern Health Alliance and LBSA.