At OPEN 2017 one of the open space sessions which was proposed by Phil Carey focused on “Inter-generational Collaborative Platforms”. Here Phil explains what was discussed and the ‘call to action’ that developed from the session.
We live in a world that needs to accommodate an extra 3 billion people within 50 years.
We also have a population that is ageing globally, and here in the U.K., the number of people aged 65+ is projected to rise by nearly 50% (48.7%) in the next 17 years to over 16 million.
These two factors means that there will not be the manpower or financial resources to cope with this demographic shift unless we start to do something about it now.
Despite the fact that we live in a global and social world, we have not learned to communicate effectively between the generations to the point that technology and physical appearance divides us rather then bringing us together.
The purpose of the session was to highlight the facts, issues and opportunities that an ageing population poses and to offer a ‘call to action’ as to why all generations need to start to work collaboratively in order to build a sustainable ‘ageless’ future.
The session started with the image above, to reinforce the message that we need to establish the vision, the passengers and the journey before we start to go into the details of platforms and collaboration. We explored the definitions of perspectives and values within the different generations and the hash facts and implications of the ‘age tsunami’ on the UK and the rest of the world.
Some of these can be seen on the session’s slides.
The session was then opened up to get feedback on what the group heard saw and felt, and to get the group’s view on what areas they felt were potential subjects to begin this collaboration process. Two categories did emerge – they were a future vision for an ‘ageless housing solution’, and creating a collaborative ageless asset image.
There was not enough time to discuss ‘platforms’, but the issue of how to prevent the digital divide becoming an issue between the different generations did get raised several times.
A animated video was subsequently produced to help summarise the session, and to reinforce the call to action.
A website and a Facebook page were also created to allow the debate to continue.
About Philip Carey -Views and Shoes ltd.
Philip is conducting personal projects that focus on seeing the world from another perspective. They all focus on finding new ways of communicating complexity and difference visually and simply in order to improve communication and to define a common vision.
He has a personal interest in the looking at new ways of living in an ageing society, and the desire to make it sustainable by the time he gets there – but realises that not enough is being done to make this a reality.
He is currently looking at new ways to communicate London visually see www.londonruns.com.
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