AGE-WELL Summer Institute 2023

In June 2023, AGE-WELL brought together 15 trainees, including high school students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, from across Canada for its 6^th annual EPIC Summer Institute in Toronto, Ontario.

The Summer Institute, Co-Creating Possibilities: Supportive Homes and Communities, focused on creating digital solutions to help older adults to live independently and with dignity in their chosen homes. Older Canadians overwhelmingly prefer to age-in-place and technology solutions to enable this are in greater and greater demand.

For this year’s Summer Institute, AGE-WELL partnered with SmartONE, a Canadian company that has created a smart community solution focused on multi-family residential developments, where smart homes are connected over a common building network and building services are integrated into the smart living experience. Working in multidisciplinary teams and mentored by older adult and caregiver stakeholders, trainees were challenged to develop an application solution to a problem posed by older adults themselves.

The event was held at the University of Toronto, with support from the PATH Project, SmartONE Solutions, and the University of Toronto Robotics Institute.

Team AgeUnity won the Summer Institute pitch competition for designing an app to decrease social isolation. Their solution connects older adults living in apartments and condos with others in their building and neighbourhood based on similar interests.

Summer Institute participants worked through the design process, from stakeholder engagement and market research through to prototyping and pitching their solutions

Researchers, industry leaders, and other stakeholders led workshops and talks

“An intense week of highly innovative collaboration between generations. AGE-WELL did an amazing job bringing mentors and teams together.” – Richard Barham, PhD candidate, Université Laval

“This unique opportunity strengthened my ability to work in diverse teams and extended my network of mentors and peers focused on developing technologies for healthy aging.” – Jessica Wong, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ontario Tech University

“What a great experience! I was part of the judging panel, and the event left me energized and inspired. It is amazing to bring real world problems to student teams, and to see them apply their creativity and unique world views to solving real problems. It was a celebration of Canadian innovation, and a unique program that brings together so many groups in collaborative and positive way.” – Ted Maulucci, President, SmartONE

Read more about previous AGE-WELL EPIC Summer Institutes here.