The Innovation & Design Programme was pleased to welcome Dr Puneet Seth on 1 October 2021 (Friday) to give a talk on age-tech. Dr Puneet Seth is a medical doctor with 25 years of experience, most recently working in surgery, emergency medicine and disaster management. He aspires to explore the use of systems development and technology to solve socio-medical challenges to enable matching life expectancy with increasing the number of quality adjusted life years.
Dr Seth began his discussion by defining age-tech as design technology to provide solutions to deal with the challenges of aging. He then cited statistics demonstrating the aging population not only in Singapore but around the world, specifically stating that by the year 2035 one in four Singaporeans will be considered “elderly” or 65 years or older. He further explained that while managing the dynamics of an aging population had sometimes been considered a hardship in the past, it can actually be perceived as an entrepreneurial opportunity when viewed from a business driven perspective. He suggested that the elderly can be loosely categorized into different groups such as “young elderly” (65 years old – 75 years old) represented by different personas and indicated that each of these groups offers unique product opportunities. Dr Seth suggested that the targeted age category for technology based product solutions was 75 years old while emphasizing such products are not meant to replace human touch in healthcare but enhance it.
Dr Seth elaborated on the age-tech matrix which considers a cross section of gerontology and technology to indicate opportunities where specific technological solutions might be most appropriate. He continued by discussing issues in the elderly community and how technology tracking key features of the human body can be used to bring attention to and predict what the needs of individuals and the community will be. The session concluded with a very engaging question and answer session which further highlighted potential opportunities in this area.
The Innovation & Design Programme would like to thank Dr Seth for a very interesting presentation and discussion. Students who are interested to pursue projects on age-tech can contact Dr Andi Sudjana Putra (engpas@nus.edu.sg).
