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Within eight years pensioners will outnumber children in the UK. As the population
balance shifts, society faces a totally new challenge - how to gear itself to more
older people than ever before.
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The financial implications alone make action essential.
The best way of meeting this challenge is to enable people to continue living independently for as long as possible, playing an active part in the community and enjoying a high quality of life. Technology can make this possible.
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The University of Dundee's top graded department of applied computing has for years been a world leader in developing technology for disabled and older people. Many of its highly practical and unique inventions have been recognised internationally and made available commercially.
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This year the University will be launching a fund-raising campaign for one of the most ambitious and visionary projects in its history -
a £10 million research centre dedicated to harnessing information technology to tackle the problems of age and disability. It is entirely appropriate that in her hundredth year, The Queen Mother, the University's first Chancellor, agreed to lend her name and her support to the centre, which will be known as the Queen Mother Centenary Research Centre.
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Led by Professor Alan Newell, who was last year awarded the MBE in recognition of his services in the field, the venture will shape the development of technology to support older people's ambitions.
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Smart houses, virtual companions and communication networks will be pioneered, tested and refined to assist the older population fulfil their wishes for independence and open up a world of social and leisure opportunities.
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At the heart of the research will be older people themselves.
Their involvement at all stages as advisers, consultants, testers and partners in research will ensure that the centre delivers visionary but practical solutions to real problems… problems such as those concerning company, mobility, memory, safety and social support.
Plans have been drawn up for a five storey, state of the art building to the north of the students' union on campus, housing smart usability laboratories, a cyber café for "silver surfers", video conferencing facilities and a versatile theatre set which can become a lounge, hospital bedroom, street scene or other setting to monitor and test prototypes in realistic situations.
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Meanwhile ongoing research, some of it led by Dundee's own alumni, is using information technology to develop "smart help" - equipment to support people, including Memojog -
an interactive memory aid which takes advantage of mobile phone and palm top computer technology; and "seeing" computers which can recognise people's gestures and movement to control equipment or detect falls.
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Official plans for the centre were launched at a Glamis Castle dinner last summer celebrating the Queen Mother's centenary with seventy benefactors, business leaders and dignitaries including Mary Countess of Strathmore who has always taken a keen interest in the work of the department of applied computing. Guest speaker was alumnus and computer games entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl who described the project as "fantastic". He said: "It is time that business recognises the importance of the 'grey market' of something like 23 million over-45 year olds in the UK."
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As the fundraising appeal steps up a gear in the coming months we will be contacting you to tell you more about our plans for this new initiative. In the meantime the QMCRC Campaign Office would be happy to be contacted to answer any question you might have.
Their telephone number is
01382 348236
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Further information on the
Queen Mother Centenary Research Centre
can be found at
www.dundee.ac.uk/queenmother/
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Maureen Marshall campaign director can be reached on email mmarshall@computing.dundee.ac.uk
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