ISABELLA – Pharaon Second Open Call winner

Project Partners: Italian Association for Spastic Assistance of the Province of Bologna onlus (AIAS Bologna), ASP City of Bologna – Public company for personal care and welfare (ASP Bologna), Lepida SCPA (LEPDIA)

Country: Italy

The ISABELLA project (Iot Support and Assistance for Better Elder Living and Learning Advancement) will extend the Pharaon ecosystem by integrating the “IoT-per-il-Sociale” (IoT for the social domain) system, which is operational in some areas of the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy. IoT-per-il-Sociale is a low-invasive system for remote environmental and behavioral monitoring of older individuals living independently with relatively low care or support needs (further referred to as “users” or “end-users”). The integration in Pharaon will allow us to scale up the system. The connection with other services will extend the scope of use and the functional value of IoT-per-il-Sociale. The proposed pilot will make it possible to verify, in real user contexts, the effectiveness of the proposed solution, both as an additional element within already existing ICT solutions and welfare services and within the Pharaon ecosystem. Some specific requirements that have determined the development of this solution and that are related to the challenge to overcome potential barriers to deployment, are also the main added value that will be brought to Pharaon:

  • the use of a LPWAN network which makes it possible to connect homes without the presence of a landline or 5G/4G Internet connection, not always present in the homes of older adults;
  • the use of sensors with little or no installation effort or complications;
  • the use of a monitoring web application specially designed for easy and immediate use in the context of the caregiver’s daily routine. In addition, to improve the digital and coresearch skills of the end-users, the associated methodology includes the provision of participatory training courses which will allow for collecting better feedback during the pilot and evaluation activities.