Increasing social engagement through technology

Increasingly, social engagement is predicated on connectivity and technology. The problem is that many studies have shown then seniors are being left behind by the digital divide. Figures vary by geography, but generally 60–70% of people over 65 years of age do not own a smartphone, laptop or PC. These devices were never really designed, marketed, or supported with seniors in mind. They are typically too complex to use, introduce significant security vulnerabilities, and are simply too expensive for most seniors.

The inability by seniors to access and use modern technology severely limits their ability to engage socially with friends and family, medically with service providers, and commercially with online vendors and services that are primarily only offered digitally.

Social and online engagement for seniors is a social, business, and technology challenge. To solve this challenge you need a business to build an application platform, technology to empower it, and content to make it engaging, relevant and personalized. But can you create a business that provides digital connectivity and social engagement for seniors?

Tikeasy, a French Post group subsidiary, decided to do just that. Their objective was to participate in the “silver economy” by providing an invaluable social engagement platform to the estimated 44 million seniors in need. Thierry Corbille, Tikeasy’s CTO and co-founder recently spoke at Couchbase CONNECT about their “ardoiz” platform.

Thierry explains that the “ardoiz” platform is a touchscreen tablet with an automatic launcher. Information and functions are grouped in an easy-to-read and easy-to-use format. The tablet platform is open, so additional applications can be installed and adapted by and for the end user. At the heart of the tablet they use Couchbase Mobile to securely manage the local data. Due to the nature of the “offline first” architecture of Couchbase Mobile, ardoiz users can access and view their local data regardless of whether the tablet is connected to the internet.

The layout of the tablet is designed to be both simple and consistent. News feeds and “push contents” are the two main types of information, with essential functions on the right hand side. The information is color-coded so that it is easy to see if it’s related to family, news, or entertainment. The platform also includes essential services, like home installation, a helpline, and automated backups, as well as tools for professionals and family members to share content with the ardoiz user.

Thierry goes on to describe the platform architecture, which is based on Couchbase Mobile (on the tablet), AWS, Couchbase Sync Gateway, and Couchbase server in the cloud. This infrastructure allows Tikeasy to automatically and securely synchronize information between the cloud and the end-user tablets, based on the services for which they have subscribed.

With regards to future plans, Thierry explains that they plan to use Couchbase Mobile to expand to other devices, allowing ardoiz users to have the same immersive social engagement experience from a variety of platforms.

For more details about this platform, please see their presentation, here.