New technology brings generations closer

New App for older people

Students from the University of Twente, in Holland, started an experiment in the Wesselerbrink district in Enschede to facilitate contact between older people and young people.

The students visited De Posten care home on a regular basis for years, to gain experience and because they wanted to learn how they could best use their technical knowledge to help the elderly.

After undertaking a questionaire they found out that what most elderly wish for to improve their life was contact with the outside world as most could not walk around freely as before. And this set off the students on a project to create a box-like machine was the restult of this Innovative Design project.

How it works

Most problem grandparents or elderly have is keeping in touch with the youger generation. So they devised a method that prints text messages sent by mobile phones, into cards which the elderly person can read and write back (handwritten message)  put it through the slot on the box and it scans directly to the person who sent it in the first place. In this case they will see the hand written message on their phone/ipad etc.  Its a very clever idea, in that not only motivates contact with younger generations but it makes the new generation receive “hand-written” texts which makes it so much more personal. The idea of the letter box in front of the machine also brings the user to feel that they have actually walked to the post box to post a letter, therefore the idea of being with the outside world is also addressed here..