Best wishes to Aaron who is travelling to Pordenone Italy next week as a member of the expert panel for the EU coordinating action BRAID. Prior to joining the University of St Andrews he was a member of the consortium which won the grant when he was working in Australia. Prior to this, while working in Ireland, Aaron was the coordinator for the CAPSIL project which fed into and led to BRAID’s formation. Along with developing and leading one of the workpackages in BRAID his guidance helped give the consortium an international dimension beyond the EU. An international view is crucially important in understanding when, where and how ICT can help address the problems ageing brings to the fore for people, society, government and other stakeholders. BRAID is a 24 month project which will develop a comprehensive RTD roadmap for active ageing by consolidating existing roadmaps and by describing and launching a stakeholder co‐ordination and consultation mechanism. It will characterise key research challenges and produce a vision for a comprehensive approach in supporting the well‐being and socio‐economic integration of increasing numbers of senior citizens in Europe.
“The Workshop is the second of five being held in a number of locations around Europe as part of the BRAID project. In order to successfully fulfil the objectives of the project, the consortium recognise and value the need to engage with members of relevant stakeholder groups in order to obtain their opinions and insights on how best to address the pertinent issues. The workshop will therefore benefit from the input of a number of experts, including Aaron, who will speak on topics related to their areas of expertise in order to generate discussion and collaboration amongst stakeholders. This will provide a backdrop for the interactive activities focusing on the vision for BRAID and the contents of the final roadmap being created.”
During this two day workshop Aaron will act as rapporteur in the Parallel Working Groups Session. His research interests in Ubiquitous Computing, Ambient Assisted Living, Surface User Interfaces, Human Computer Interaction are amongst the areas of expertise Aaron will draw from during this workshop. In the months ahead Aaron is working with colleagues in SICSA and across Europe on the formation of an EU Project Proposal in Ambient Assisted Living.