The £4.34m Longitude Prize on Dementia, funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK, is incentivising the development of breakthrough assistive technologies for people living with dementia.
24 international teams, supported by a partnership of Challenge Works, a global leader in the design and delivery of challenge prizes mobilising innovation for social good, and the social innovation charity Social Tech Trust, are developing working prototypes of new assistive technologies to help people living with dementia remain independent for longer.
The technologies will use artificial intelligence to learn about their users and adapt to help ‘fill the gaps’ as their cognitive function is progressively reduced by the disease. The aim is to help people to live independently for longer while maintaining fulfilling lives.
Social Tech Trust, a charity that challenges organisations to think differently about technology’s role in society, will be helping each innovator to assess where their product might benefit from support and provide appropriate technology and data advice. The charity will also leverage its network of experts to introduce innovators to big tech companies, including Microsoft, AWS and NVIDIA.
Chris Blues, Director, Social Tech Trust said:
“Around 50 million people worldwide are living with dementia, including 900,000 in the UK. Tech has enormous power to help with many social challenges – including dementia, which can devastate lives, causing people to lose their memory, identity and sadly, relationships.
“Supporting innovators with technical and data support to help refine their prototypes is the first step in using technology to ease the lives of those living with dementia.”
The partnership will form just one element of the non-financial support offered to teams participating in the Longitude Prize on Dementia. Alongside the technical support, wider support is being provided through opportunities to ensure all technologies are co-created with people living with dementia or caring for people with dementia.
Challenge Works is also offering advice and guidance from 15 dementia experts, ranging from frontline dementia healthcare professionals to, leading dementia academics as well as design and customer experience experts. The innovators will be able to book one-on-one sessions with each expert.
Ruth Neale, Programme Manager for the Longitude Prize on Dementia at Challenge Works said:
“We’re excited to join forces with Social Tech Trust to provide semi-finalists in the Longitude Prize on Dementia with tailored technical and data support to develop their ideas into prototypes.”
More information about the Longitude Prize on Dementia can be found at dementia.longitudeprize.org
