• Project Leader: Rob Wilson
• Staff: Gregory Maniatopoulos, Mike Martin, Sarah Walsh, Sue Baines
• Sponsors: EU
• Partners: Municipality of Bologna, Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale di Bologna, Charles University in Prague, CUP 2000, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, CETIC (Centre d’Excellence en Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication), Czech Technical Un

The aims of the project are to help improve the quality of life of older people in receipt of care, maintain their independence at home, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of assistance and support services. The project will give older people living at home a ‘digital companion’ in the form of a low cost PC. It will provide entertainment services and health care facilities based on established Internet and tele-care communication standards. The system will be tested at two different locations: Italy (Bologna) over a group of 100 older people (including 10 suffering with cardio disease) and Czech Republic over a group of 10 diabetic patients. In order meet the project aims, the technological innovation will need to be embedded into organisational structures and networks of care delivery and public services. Moreover, it must respond to the social, cultural and ethical constraints and conditions of older people themselves, their families and care networks, and the communities in which they live. The role of the SBI team is to contribute to achieving all this through the use of modelling and animation tools to create scenarios designed to elicit responses from older people, their carers, and service providers. Animation and simulation will help to ensure that developments are, at all stages, grounded in the realties of social and health care, the cultures and economies of the specific pilot contexts, and as wide a range as possible of other European public service contexts.