Virtual Coach Reaches Out “To Me“

The overall “V2me“ project goal is to enhance the joy of life of the network members. To fulfill this goal V2me supports active ageing by increased integration in the society through the provision of advanced social connectedness and social network services and activities. “V2me“ implements this goal by a flexible assistive living solution to prevent loneliness with particular emphasis on acceptance by senior end users.

Rooted in scientific theory and research, it uses evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to develop a social facilitator that enables both prevention of loneliness in young-old individuals (65 to 74 years) and successful intervention in older generations (75 vears an older). “V2me“ is encouraging older people to continue in participating in the society, to share their knowledge and experiences, to stay mobile and cognitively agile.

As an intelligent combination of off-the-shelf and innovative technology (hardware and software) hiding behind a simple, user friendly interface, “V2me“ presents itself as a coach with two distinct functions:

  1. Mediating relationships by supporting contact with other users from existing kin, friends, and professional networks, and potential new communication partners (enriching social networks).
  2. Interacting with the user in an adaptive personalized way to establish a para-social relationship (as an additional contribution to preventing loneliness).

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is represented by two institutes – Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS (Erlangen) and Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD (Darmstadt). Main goal of this project is a broad acceptance of the developed systems by the designated target group. For this purpose the project has a broadly setup consortium with experiences from numerous AAL-projects. One focus is the testing of the developed system by three international distributed test groups in the Netherlands, Finland and Germany. The results of these studies have influence on the final system, with the goal to provide an innovative, easy-to-learn product and thus enhance the joy of life of the network members sustainably.

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