It’s easy to take for granted how much we count on technology. Can you imagine life in the pandemic without it? But what does the future hold for technology that will make life easier for older adults? Keren Etkin, author of The Age Tech Revolution, previews what’s coming and why Age Tech should be part of your planning, especially if aging in place is your goal.

We discuss:

• What AgeTech is about
• What a Gerontechnologist does – and what led her to that field
• The two trends that are colliding and accelerating the development of new technology that will help older adults
• The 6 areas where technology can enhance the capabilities of older adults
• Myths about older adults and technology
• How older adults will use technology in our daily lives 10 years from now
• The Longevity Explorers and what we can learn from them
• Why retirement is ripe for disruption
• How reinvention and re-skilling are alternatives to traditional retirement
• The role robots will be playing with older adults in the future
• How planning for technology should be on your list if you’re planning to age in place
• The coolest technology for older adults she’d like to see developed

Keren Etkin joins us from Israel.

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Keren Etkin is the author of The Age Tech Revolution – a book about the intersection of technology and aging, founder of TheGerontechnologist.com, a media platform that covers the global agetech ecosystem and offers online courses through the AgeTech Academy, and the founder/director of AgeLabIL at Shenkar college in Israel, an interdisciplinary R&D center focusing on agetech.

Named one of the most influential people in aging, Etkin is a sought-after public speaker and advisor for agetech startups, investors in the longevity economy, care providers and organizations who work on innovation in aging.

Previously, Etkin was the first employee at Intuition Robotics, maker of ElliQ, a pioneering social robot designed with and for older adults, and co-founder & VP of Product at Sensi.ai, a startup that developed the first artificial intelligence solution for remote care monitoring.

She holds an M.A. in Gerontology and a B.Sc. in Life Sciences from Ben-Gurion University.

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For More on Keren Etkin

The Age Tech Revolution on Amazon

Website: TheGerontechnologist.com

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Smarter Tomorrow – Elizabeth Ricker

Are You Ready for The New Long Life? – Andrew Scott

Who Will Take Care of You When You Are Older? – Joy Loverde

Successful Aging – Daniel Levitin

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Mentioned in This Episode

Apple’s iOS 15 Has a Fall-Prevention Feature Everyone Should Use

The Longevity Explorers

Stay Hydrated: There are a number of Water Bottles with sensors on Amazon – here’s an example

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Wise Quotes

On Older Adults & Technology

“The facts are that older adults are adopting technology at increasingly growing numbers in the past decade and that this trend of of tech adoption has been around since before Covid. And the pandemic has definitely accelerated it. It accelerated tech adoption and tech usage for everyone, and that is also true for older adults. They bought tech devices they adopted more video chat than ever before, not just to to chat with their children and grandchildren but also also to consume healthcare care services and to use telehealth, and to chat with their friends. And their their book club steadily was online rather than in person. So we saw this massive boost in adoption which is great and also everyone suddenly realized – and when I say everyone, I mean the general population. Everyone who has an older loved one in their lives and also governments –  everyone – realized that it’s not a luxury to have older adults use technology. It’s a necessity in our society.”

On the Future of the Home and Aging in Place

“We can we have can have sensors installed and like wall-mounted sensors, wearable sensors in the ring, in the watch and whatever. I think 10 years down the line, we’ll have ambient sensors sort of embedded in our homes sensing us – sensing what we need and and delivering what we need, based on their understanding of of the surroundings, based on whatever readings they get from our bodies. Laurie Orlov calls it the Internet of Behavior. The sensors will be able to predict what we need and and basically give it to us – and I think that can go a long way towards aging in place, because one of the one of the barriers to aging in place is that oftentimes people’s homes are not very customizable. It costs a lot of money to customize your home to to adapt your changing needs as you grow older. And your community might not be so adaptive if you’re not as agile as you used to be twenty or thirty years ago. I think that technology can definitely help us with that and I also expect us to have more robotics and automation into our lives because at the end of the day some of the things that people struggle with in the home as they grow older is is just like household maintenance and household chores – and that’s not a reason to to leave your home right? Because most people prefer to age in place, we can definitely automate a lot of that and we can definitely use technology to to predict our needs and to help us live longer, better, healthier and more active lives. It can help us maintain our our general well-being both physically and emotionally as we grow older and to enable anyone who wants to, to age in place.”

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