MIT's AgeLab

In 1999 MIT created Agelab which looks to create innovative solutions to keep people active throughout the duration of their life, especially targeted towards those post retirement. The project seeks to create a new generation of thinkers on the subject of aging while seeking to move beyond mere ideas towards implementation. As described on the website: "Equal to the need for ideas and new technologies is the belief that innovations in how products are designed, services are delivered, or policies are implemented are of critical importance to our quality of life tomorrow." Agelab frames its research with an examination of services available through business as well as public and governmental entities and how they can respond to the growing reality of an aging population, as well as providing better services to this segment of the population today. In making the determination of these evolving demands, a few issues Agelab has focused on include:

In the business and private sector:  

• How companies will make enterprise-wide change to reflect the new realities of an older marketplace.  
• The design of products or services that meet the needs of an older consumer without alienating younger buyers.    
• On-line engagement strategies for an older population.    
• Dealing with increases in retirees as well as having a wider age range in the workplace.

For government and NGOs:    

• Transportation system being responsive to the safety and mobility demands of tomorrow’s generation of older people.  
•  Housing, health and social service programs and their ability to meet new expectations, integrate new technologies and demand new public-private delivery partnership.   
• Politics of an aging nation. 

"AgeLab's work can be found in selected automobiles, health and wellness programs, physician offices, retail shopping experiences, insurance products, and on the agenda of governments around the world."

AgeLabs's current director also has a blog (www.disruptivedemographics.com) that keeps up-to-date with the projects and the research being taking on by AgeLab and follows information on potential demographic shifts. One project that struck my interest examines the potential of smarted transportation grid that links not only public transportation such as trains and buses but includes a broader fleet of vehicles like taxis and response vehicles. Transportation can then be connected to a central system that increase potentials for mobility especially when and when people can travel and increasing the percentage of people who have access to these systems. This undertaking will not only bring benefit to an aging population but can be expanded and sustained to answer other transportation questions that are increasingly facing our country due to environmental concerns.

The question of examining our aging population is a pressing one, not simply due to the necessity to examine changing demands for resources and planning, but as a broader conversation in the important role that older people have in our society. Often today we become so absorbed by what is happening right now and whats new and we forget to think about what we could be learning from what has come before. As more innovation and entrepreneurship will be focused on meeting the demands of older generations, it will create the benefit of linking the innovators with the past while creating benefit for all of society.