While the lion’s share of attention and buzz in the world of AgeTech typically focuses on the exciting new solutions that companies are introducing to help people live well as they age, a crucial contributing factor to the AgeTech ecosystem’s success too often goes unnoticed: namely, volunteers — and in particular, the many older adults who offer their time and talents to help guide innovation and shape the future of AgeTech.
These unsung AgeTech heroes contribute in any number of ways across the board, from providing direct user feedback to help startups evolve their solutions and guide living communities as they build out their tech offerings, to lending their expertise and mentoring up-and-coming AgeTech entrepreneurs in business and in life.
To help mark National Volunteer Month — a time to recognize and celebrate those who give their time, energy and expertise for the greater good — we’re shining a light on just a few of the many ways that older adult volunteers are helping to fuel progress across the AgeTech Collaborative™ community.
Co-Creation and Feedback: Volunteers Shaping What’s Built
Startups across the board are increasingly discovering the power of co-creation in innovation — that is, getting feedback and input from end users and other stakeholders outside the organization to help shape the design process of the products and services they’re building. This approach helps ensure that when they go to market, their offering will be as customer-centric and effective as possible.
AgeTech startups are no exception to this trend. As it happens, AgeTech startups may actually have a unique advantage when it comes to co-creation: Their end users are often older adults who are frequently — contrary to popular opinion — particularly eager to share their ideas and feedback on technology that is meant for them, and they are not afraid to be candid.
The motivations that drive these volunteers to co-create with AgeTech startups vary, from a pragmatic interest in making sure that the tech they are testing will solve their actual, lived problems, to a visionary interest in helping to shape the emerging technology that will impact future generations, including their own children and grandchildren.
Although these older adults may have different reasons for volunteering their time and insights, their contributions to AgeTech startups are invaluable. Through focus groups, participatory design sessions, ethnographic interviews and other methods, these volunteers point out shortcomings that (often much younger) founders and designers never considered, particularly in areas such as user-friendliness. As a result, they make products better by ensuring that they’re not just functional, but also meaningful, relevant, accessible and age-inclusive.
Engaging in the process of co-creation can yield a wealth of benefits, but the process can be challenging. Just the logistics of co-creation — designing tests and scheduling focus groups, for example — can be a drain on a startup’s time and resources. And where do you find your co-creators in the first place?
Fortunately, startups don’t have to reinvent the co-creation wheel — they can turn to organizations and programs that have existing connections to volunteer resources. A prime example is our own AgeTech Collaborative Feedback Program, which facilitated the nuts and bolts of the process so startups could quickly get connected with volunteer end users — and start getting their feedback.
Accelerator programs are another excellent resource. The AgeTech Collaborative’s own accelerator program offers personalized guidance and opportunities for co-creation, but it’s far from the only one. Global startup accelerator Techstars also features a host of focused accelerator programs that can help, and the Toronto-based Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), an AgeTech Collaborative enterprise participant, offers a range of acceleration services and has involved more than 80,000 older adults in the innovation process. Leveraging these or similar programs, startups can save themselves time and bandwidth, and jump-start the co-creation process.
Design Thinking and Living Labs: Volunteers Informing Big Decisions
Volunteers aren’t just helping startups — they’re also informing the innovation strategies of senior living communities and testbeds that are making real-world investment decisions.
The experience of Asbury Methodist Village (Asbury) — a residential living community in Gaithersburg, Maryland — is a case in point. Long dedicated to adopting new technologies to improve the lives of its residents, in 2024 Asbury decided to loop their residents into the decision-making process. Asbury developed the Smart Living Showcase, fitting one of its apartments out with an assortment of AgeTech solutions. Residents then had a formal opportunity to tour the apartment, get hands-on time with the AgeTech services and products and provide feedback to Asbury staff on each of the solutions.
This candid feedback is a critical component for Asbury as it seeks to leverage AgeTech to support its residents. “The feedback that Asbury residents provide is invaluable because it helps us understand how we can better serve them,” says Doug Leidig, president and CEO of Asbury Communities, Inc. “With that information, we can be more proactive when it comes to selecting certain technologies for Asbury. Plus, the volunteers really enjoy it: It keeps them comfortable with new technology, which makes it easier for them to stay connected with their families, especially their grandkids.”
United Church Homes (UCH), a network of more than 80 senior living properties, took a similar interest in engaging its residents to guide the offerings and programs it offers. UCH and the AgeTech Collaborative design thinking team collaborated to host 15 UCH volunteer residents for a structured, two-day “design sprint” at the Parkvue Community in Sandusky, Ohio. There, the volunteers themselves ideated, prioritized and refined a number of initiatives they believed would improve residents’ lives through the power of music, the joy of movement and a deeper connection to the natural world. The volunteers then presented their top ideas to the UCH board, and their initiatives were soon adopted.
This workshop followed the principles of human-centered design, which prioritizes a bottom-up understanding of challenges from the point of view of the people actually affected. The workshop was so effective that UCH has now embraced a recurring, formal human-centered design training program for its staff members to continually and more closely understand the needs of its residents — a direct result of those first volunteers’ work.
Mentorship and Advisory Roles: Volunteers Transferring Knowledge
The impact of volunteering in AgeTech goes beyond providing user feedback about new solutions and services or helping to guide the policies of testbeds and living communities. Many retirees, caregivers, technologists and others volunteer their time to mentor others or otherwise participate in advisory roles, transferring decades of wisdom to the next generation of AgeTech innovation.
A case in point is AgeTech Collaborative startup participant Peadbo, which helps individuals build personal advisory boards. Typically composed of volunteers who are retired or nearing retirement, these boards share their experiences and expert insights to help the individual who assembled the board to achieve whatever specific goal he or she has in mind — for example, achieving a promotion at work, or completing that unfinished novel that has languished for years. This volunteer work not only has a direct impact on people’s lives, but by sharing their trusted insights on life, health, and career decisions, these volunteers are extending the value of mentorship in new ways.
The work benefits the volunteers, too. “Often, the volunteers have gone from a place where everyone is seeking their wisdom, to a place in retirement where no one is seeking out their opinions any more,” says Peadbo CEO Keith Chaney. “But they still have all this wisdom they are happy to share, and being on someone’s board gives them an opportunity to stay active and help someone succeed.”
As the flagship program of the Older Adult Technology Services (OATS) project from AARP, Senior Planet offers digital literacy training both online and in several office locations across the country. Senior Planet relies on a host of volunteers across the spectrum of tech experience levels to fulfill vital roles, from greeters and advisory committee members to tech assistants and hosts of online classes. But no matter the role, the work of every volunteer makes possible the tech learning programs that uplifts older adults by giving them confidence with digital tools, all the while promoting inclusion and reducing isolation.
And, of course, don’t forget that volunteers in the AgeTech Collaborative ecosystem can also help … you! The AgeTech Brain Trust is comprised of volunteer advisors across a variety of sectors who are eager to lend their experiences and perspectives to other AgeTech Collaborative participants. By volunteering their time, these Brainiacs can provide individual attention and in-depth answers to any AgeTech-related questions you might have, from landing funding and working with large health systems to running focus groups and crafting winning go-to-market strategies.
The Brain Trust experience is entirely personalized — and free! Getting started is easy: Just visit the Brain Trust directory and review the listings for a Brainiac whose area of expertise matches your needs. Click on that person’s entry and send them a message directly from the directory. From there, you and your Brainiac can determine how they can best help you.
April may be National Volunteer Month, but the work of volunteers is essential all year long. This is just as true in the cutting-edge world of AgeTech as it is in any other field, if not more so: The role of older-adult volunteers as co-creators who share their experiences and perspectives helps ensure that AgeTech innovation remains relevant, inclusive and focused on building a future that works better for everyone. With this in mind, we invite you to consider ways that you or your organization can activate or support volunteers in meaningful ways.
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