AGE-WELL’s 8th Annual EPIC Summer Institute
Charlottetown, PEI | July 7 – 11, 2025
Embodied Tetris team-building activity
The 2025 AGE-WELL Summer Institute, held at the University of Prince Edward Island, welcomed 16 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from across Canada and the University of Edinburgh for a transformative week of experiential learning and direct stakeholder engagement.
This year’s theme, “Co-Creating Possibilities: Supportive Homes & Communities,” reflected AGE-WELL’s commitment to engaging older adults, caregivers, and stakeholder organizations in the innovation process. Participants worked in multidisciplinary teams with veterans, caregivers, and staff from Veterans Affairs Canada to design technology-enabled solutions to real-world challenges.
Over five days, participants attended interactive workshops, collaborated with end-users, and built early stage prototypes with the goal of enhancing home and community support systems to enable and empower veterans and their families to age in place.
The week culminated in a public pitch competition where community members, researchers, and policymakers gathered to watch teams of trainees present their final concepts to a panel of expert judges. Each pitch highlighted how collaboration and co-design with older adults led to more relevant, inclusive, and implementable solutions. Judges evaluated projects based on innovation, impact, and how effectively they integrated user feedback throughout the design process.
2025 Summer Institute Pitch Competition Winner: Veterans Services Network
The winning team, Veterans Services Network, tackled the complex challenge of providing peace of mind for caregivers and ensuring veteran safety at home. The team pitched a training program and accreditation service accompanied by an app that would match and connect veterans and caregivers to the services required to thrive within their community.
For University of British Columbia student Albin Soni, the Summer Institute was “an incredible opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary team of peers all from different backgrounds to tackle a complex problem. Developing a compelling solution and winning the pitch competition would not have been possible without close work with and support from our expert and lived experience stakeholders.”
Beyond the competition, the Institute created space for meaningful relationship-building and knowledge exchange. Trainees left with not only practical experience in co-design and tech development but also a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of Canadian veterans.
AGE-WELL’s Summer Institute continues to be a vital training ground for the next generation of aging and technology leaders. By rooting innovation in empathy and community collaboration, the 2025 cohort demonstrated what’s possible when research and lived experience come together.
As Canada’s population continues to age, events like this are essential to building more supportive, inclusive environments for older adults — and the future looks brighter because of it.
AGE-WELL gratefully acknowledges the support that made this year’s Summer Institute possible. We are especially thankful to Veterans Affairs Canada, the University of Prince Edward Island, the Aging in Place Challenge program of the National Research Council of Canada, and the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) at the University of Edinburgh. Special thanks to the veterans and caregiver stakeholders who shared their time and insights and to Olive Bryanton of AGE-WELL’s Older Adult and Caregiver Advisory Committee, whose vision and leadership made it possible for us to be in PEI this year.
Read about the 2024 AGE-WELL EPIC Summer Institute here.