Smart Silver Villages as part of Social Infrastructure for Older Adults in Rural Areas

Abstract

Rural areas in the European Union are ageing faster than urban areas, in many cases due to outmigration of young cohorts. Social innovations based on the digital transformation of health care and social care delivery systems can support older adults to live autonomously and independently in their own communities and postpone or even prevent their having to enter a nursing home. Extension of these innovations in service provision to rural areas is the subject of this paper. Development of Smart Eko Social Villages presents opportunities for the development of new, digitally supported health and social infrastructure in rural areas. The innovations will enable a more efficient combination of the existing societal resources in the communities for the provision of health care and social needs to the ageing members of the society. They are dependent on the help of others due to illness or functional decline. On the supply side, new scientific (optimisation of the supply networks), organisational (self-managed communities) and technological innovations, like robotics, domotics, cyber physic systems (CPS) based on the Internet of Things and cloud computing, offer new utilities and create new businesses for the supply of goods and services to older people, and also provide new job opportunities for the younger residents. This paper aims to consider the development of Smart Silver Villages as part of social infrastructure in rural areas, supporting the autonomy and independence of the rural population in their old age.