The project partners and the goals of the project were presented
On the 24th of October started the kick-off meeting of the SENIOR ECO-NECT project. The meeting gathered all the project partners for the first time to explore the project objectives and the upcoming activities in the next few months. SENIOR ECO-NECT is a HORIZON EUROPE project which aims to support the emergence and development of European ecosystems dedicated to silver and the aging economy. EPSI is one of the partners in the project and was represented in the meeting by our project manager Panos Papageorgiou.
The meeting brought together around 40 people online. It began with introductions by Stane Pejovnik from Slovenian Innovation Hub and from Caroline Weste from Eurasenior, the lead partner of the project. Next was a presentation from Irina Kalderon Libal from EC that shared the experience of the European Commission in working with issues related to the silver economy and talked about the importance of addressing them. She also cited the EC’s Silver Economy Strategy and referred to the potential that the silver economy will have in the future.
The next presentation was delivered by Dr. Hellen McGuirk from Munster Technological University in Ireland. She talked about the background of the university and its relation to the project through the HINCKS CENTRE for Entrepreneurship Excellence. After that Gisela Garsia Alvarez from Cluster Saude De Galicia shared their experience as an organization in working with elderly people and gave some concrete examples from their day-to-day activities and other relevant projects. She focused a little bit on the implementation of telemedicine in distant locations like villages and other remote locations.
Another project presentation was given by Alenka Rozaj from Slovenian Innovation Hub. After that Panos Papageorgiou, our project manager presented the opportunities in sports for the aging population within the context of the project. He talked about how sports help elderly people remain socially included and more healthy. Panos mentioned how important is to address the social and economic barriers elderly people may face and how important is to include them in tailor-made programs by avoiding stereotypes related to the elderly.
The last presentation was given by Ivor Ambrose, managing director of the Europe Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT). He presented how their activity reflects the goals of the SENIOR ECO-NECT and how this can bring together the silver economy and tourism. He also talked about how important accessible tourism is and how organizations and businesses should adapt to offer accessible services and communities.