1. The motivation Distributed knowledge sources Distributed experience
How to “use” such resources?
How to actively involve these people in the society?
Ageing population and people with disabilities is a fact
We need to find a way to “use” these people actively and efficiently in the society
These people can offer:
knowledge
Experience
Time to work and produce more of the above
Create virtual communities of such people and provide them with services to communicate and exchange ideas to produce knowledge on specific topics
Propose solution in specific social problems
Discuss social issues
Provide recommendations

2. The idea A powerful Knowledge Generator
Build virtual communities of elderly and functionally impaired people and provide them with services to communicate and exchange ideas to produce knowledge on specific topics
Let them propose solutions in specific social problems, discuss social issues, provide recommendations
Create a pool of knowledge ready to be processed and practically used
Achieve active and useful participation of ageing people in the society

3. Research interests and advancements
Communities (virtual collaboration spaces) building
Advertised as semantic services  Semantically enhanced discovery with a reasoning engine  Experts in Semantics and SOA
Interaction with the collaboration services
Multi-modal access  Experts in ICT accessibility software
Several types of sensors to give transparent access for people with disabilities  Experts in sensors and intelligent sensors’ agents technology
Mobile access  Experts in Mobile Communication
Knowledge Management
Semantic processing of the produced knowledge (documents, forums, s, chats, videos, images) to potentially feed social Decision Support Systems  Experts in DSS and Semantic Knowledge processing
Presentation
Services to enable the effective presentation of the produced knowledge to people with disabilities  Experts in Knowledge Visualisation
Society impact
Two main profiles of users
Knowledge Generators
Knowledge Consumers
The Consumers (e.g. Public Administrations, Academic sector, Private companies) will be able to “buy” knowledge generated through the communities of ageing people
The revenue may be returned to the ageing people as developments for their welfare