Healthy and Active Ageing Bootcamp (HAA) promotes the creation and validation of new services, products and businesses in the area of longevity and active aging.
The ageing population in Europe offers new challenges to product development. These challenges aren’t being met entirely by startups (e.g. home trackers) as they fail to grasp the unmet needs, or approach them with a bias towards the target groups as "seniors/elders".
The main aim to support the transformation of scientific knowledge into services and products that create value for society: by reducing existing barriers and facilitating access to markets and key know-how.
HAA Bootcamp will offer dedicated and hands-on support to 10 selected teams, boosting their innovation potential through practical tools in product validation. The activities are designed to support both technical and business validation while offering access to training, user validation, mentoring by renewed experts, and contact with companies and investors to generate business opportunities.
HAA offers a 4 month journey divided into 4 main stages:
1. Selection stage: careful vetting that includes stakeholders/experts from the Board of Advisors (BoA), to ensure the selection of a balanced group of up to 10 teams with targeted solutions and the scaleup drive;
2. Preparation Phase: Online Mentoring and preparation material to ensure every participant is “up to speed” and understands the timeline, objectives and workload;
3. 2 weeks of intensive training and validation:
Training Module 1: Business Training Module – Dublin
Trinity delivers custom Business training to the selected startups, dealing with specific issues and examples of the longevity market;
Training Module 2: Validation Module – Lodz
MUL will focus on validation with target user groups (independent living, care homes and other groups) dealing with user needs, interactions and the added challenge of the polish language.
4. Training, stakeholders’ engagement in Portugal and Spain + EIT Health Roadshow
Training Module 3: Commercialization Module - Madrid/Coimbra
The last stage focuses on certification, commercialization process and contacting stakeholders to establish partnerships and commercial links. A final event will allow teams to showcase their solution to potential buyers, investors and partners.
After the program, teams will be prepared for the common EIT Health Roadshow.
This achieved the following results:
• 10 Start-ups supported during the Bootcamp;
• 10 solutions validated by end-users during the Bootcamp.