Category: Holidays

Message from the COLABORAR team

The COLABORAR project achieved another year of strong performance in 2019, demonstrating the value of a living lab established in Porto.

The success of this year that comes to an end would not have been possible without the volunteers helping us to meet the demands of the ever-changing projects’ needs. Furthermore, people from COLABORAR inspire researchers and are privileged informers of needs, challenges and capabilities, thus strengthening our position as experts in human research, usability, testing and evidence generators on digital technology.

We wish you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

The COLABORAR team

Off-site work meeting

Starting off 2019 with an off-site work meeting with the Human-Centred Design team.

All the members of the team gathered to talk about the strategic agenda for the new year. Tasks were distributed and suggestions were discussed. We are preparing many surprises for 2019!

Tea and chocolate cake made the meeting more pleasurable. What a nice way to start off the year!

Season's Greetings

Wishing you Happy Holidays and prosperity to the New Year.

We hope you all have an unforgettable time this holiday! Looking forward to see you soon!

 

Technology show

It is already on December 12 that you can discover how older adults and technology are related.

Organized by COLABORAR, this will be an event open to older adults from the city of Porto to discover technology developed with and for older adults. Some of our latest projects related to innovations in m-health, active ageing, wellbeing and literacy will be showcased. User research and testing methodologies will be hilighted as an essential part of research and development. Researchers will be answering all questions posed by our visitors.

Don’t miss this opportunity! Registration is free, but limited to available spots. Register through: 220430347.

COLABORAR anniversary celebrations

COLABORAR just turned seven!

What better way to celebrate the anniversary than a social event? Researchers from the Human-Centered Design and volunteers gathered at the Auditorium to commemorate the 7th anniversary and chat about technology. We showcased some of Fraunhofer AICOS’ projects on mobile health and wellbeing and we also presented a project in the area of education and literacy for children. We wanted to show the importance of involving users in our work to develop solutions for diverse societal challenges. Most importantly, we wanted to share our joy in celebrating the project anniversary.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many hundreds of dedicated older adults who have participated over the years: they have made over 2800 research sessions possible and have been irreplaceable in making the project what it is today! Cheers to the next 7 years!

The COLABORAR team.

7 year COLABORAR anniversary

We will be marking the 7th milestone anniversary of COLABORAR on November 26.

This celebration will be held at the Fraunhofer AICOS’ Auditorium. This year we planned a celebratory event  full of interaction moments between researchers and volunteers, but we will keep specific details under wraps.

For now, we only want to share with you the biggest achievements: more than 2800 research sessions with volunteers, 1100 participants and 70 projects supported. We are proud and, above all, grateful to every volunteer who contributed to research and innovation on technology to Propose Futures and Impact Lives of older adults.

Stay tuned for more news!

World Usability Day 2018

On November 8 one celebrate the World Usability Day 2018. Every year, the date has a theme aiming to foster discussions around the topic. This year the theme is “Design for Good or Evil”.

It is known that design has great impact on the usability of everything and many times it determines the usefulness and success of an object, service or app. In this context, and in a simplified manner, the ultimate goal of good design is making things easy to use. On the contrary, bad design deny users the possibility of doing the things they want to do; in extreme situations it can cause very serious consequences or even harms.

The COLABORAR team takes the chance to congratulate designers and engineers working in the Human-Centred Design team at Fraunhofer AICOS to build solutions – whether it is a mobile or web app or wearable sensors – easy to use and with potential to improve well-being and health of several persons.

 

Off-site work meeting

Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS Human-Centered Design group gathered for an off-site work meeting.

It was in a cozy place that the group discussed the most recent work and the aims of the strategic research area of Human-Centered Design within Fraunhofer. The next steps to continue to innovate in user studies were defined, priority areas selected and tasks distributed.

We finished the meeting believing that we are in the right path to enhance this area within Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS.

Validation studies with users of medical devices hilighted in the meeting of MDevNet

The topic of validation studies of technology-based medical devices with users was hilighted in a meeting with the members of MDevNet.

MDevNet is an initiative led by Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS that gathers many R&D institutions, industry, academia, public entities and end-user representatives. What brings the partners in the network together is their active involvement in the process of valuing technology transfer of technology-based medical devices.

The meeting was organized around three themes:

  • clarification of legal issues associated with medical devices;
  • obstacles and promotion of mechanisms for interaction between national entities involved in the process of co-development and validation of medical devices and
  • effectiveness of technology transfer processes.

One of the topics was related to validation studies of medical devices with users and all the certification process.

In general, the conclusion of the meeting was that more information about regulations, processes and formalities is needed.

Fraunhofer’s technology won a prize

GoLiveClip won the first prize in the Silver Economy Awards!

GoLiveClip is a wearable device that was developed by Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS. It is a small clip to attach in the clothes and it enables activity monitoring, fall risk analyses and fall detection; it also has an alarm button to activate in an emergency case. GoLiveClip is commerciallized by Gociety Solutions.

The prize recognizes the project as the most innovative solution and with more potential to improve older adults’ quality of life.

In the design and testing phases, older adults had a fundamental role. Thank you to all who participated!

Image: Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS