eVITA Portal 2007-2009

The ageing of the society, i.e. the increase of the proportion of the elderly people within the population is a serious problem everywhere in the world. The provision and care and, when needed, the supervision and nursing of the elderly means a growing burden not only for their relatives and friends, but also for the whole society. Because of the change in the proportion of earners and non-earners (beside school-aged youngsters also retired persons, persons with disabilities, chronic patients, permanently disabled, unemployed workers, etc. belong here!) the sustainable financing of the health care and social care systems has become questionable.

The application of infocommunication technologies may help to solve a considerable part of the foreseeable problems. To this, however, a widely accepted strategy, development programs and, first and foremost, cooperation is needed.

Several member states of the European Union have been urging since 2003 that a so-called common programme be started in the area of ambient (infocommunication) assisted living; Art. 169 of the European Treaty allows such programmes. After many years of preparations, the Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (shortly: AAL Joint Programme or AAL JP) is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2008. Hungary, as founding member of the AAL Association, will participate in the programme.

In order to take advantage of the opportunities residing in the assistive applications of infocommunication technologies in general, and in the AAL Joint Programme in particular, a national strategy and proper programmes are needed also in Hungary. Having recognized this, the Working Party for Embedded and Ambient Systems (BeAm_IM) of the John von Neumann Computer Society (NJSZT) was founded in 2005, and a proposal for the so-called eVITA National Programme was elaborated in 2006. (The eVITA acronym origins from the Hungarian expression: életviteli technológiák és alkalmazások, which assistive (infocommunication) technologies and applications, or shortly: assistive technologies and applications).

The proposal was favourably received in the Ministry of Economy and Transport (GKM), the Ministry of Health (EüM) and also the National Research and Technology Office (NKTH). In the summer of 2007, GKM contracted us to prepare a background study for the preparation of the eVITA National Programme. In September 2007 the eVITA Allience was founded, and then at the end of November the eVITA National Technology Platform was established.

An outstanding international event of 2008 will be the eVITA 2008 Conference and Exhibition between April 3 and 5 in Budapest, in the Europe Congress Centre, which is also the proposed European launch event of the planned AAL Joint Programme.