The Mobile Age project, focusing on open government data, mobile technology, and the provision of public services in relation to Europe’s elderly population, has published policy recommendations that will help to transfer existing successful and innovative approaches and initiatives to other cities.
Europe’s senior citizens are growing steadily and are predicted to comprise of 28% of Europe’s population by 2020. However, senior citizens do not normally share the same level of connectivity to the Internet as younger generations, and while government agencies are increasingly providing their services through digital platforms, this risks excluding senior citizens from the design and use of such services. Mobile Age provides the basis for the development of mobile-based open government services focused on senior citizens.
Following a co-creation methodological approach, Mobile Age allows a substantive participation of senior citizens and make them benefit from the production and use of open data for cities, achieved by pursuing four objectives:
- exploring and implementing innovative ways to support senior citizens to access and use public services through personal mobile technologies that are based on open data
- developing and deploying co-creation approaches and methodologies to engage senior citizens effectively
- developing a situated, practice-based understanding of accessibility, mobility and usability of services from a senior citizen’s point of view
- developing a framework for impact assessment and evaluation for co-creation approaches to open service development for the ageing population.
Mobile Age has published policy briefings and recommendations on the following topics:
- Policy Brief: Pathways to Meaningful Access: Accessible digital services for older adults
- Policy Brief on co-creation method for eGovernment services
- Policy Brief on e-inclusion of Europe’s older adults
- Policy Brief on privacy implications of technologies to address older adults’ social isolation
- Policy Brief on GDPR and SMEs
- Policy Brief on loneliness and social isolation amongst older adults
- Policy Brief on how technology prevents social isolation for older adults