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Smart & Sustainable Society INNOVATION
Smart sofa with sensors integrated
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Market Maturity: Tech Ready
These are innovations that are progressing on technology development process (e.g. pilots, prototypes, demonstration). Learn more
Market Creation Potential
This innovation was assessed by the JRC’s Market Creation Potential indicator framework as addressing the needs of existing markets and existing customers. Learn more
Go to Market needs
Needs that, if addressed, can increase the chances this innovation gets to (or closer to) the market incude:
  • Prepare for Market entry
  • Secure capital
  • Scale-up market opportunities
Location of Key Innovators developing this innovation
Key Innovators
UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDG)
This innovation contributes to the following SDG(s)
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 3
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

The UN explains: "Significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers responsible for child and maternal mortality.

Major progress has also been made on increasing access to clean water and sanitation, reducing malaria, tuberculosis, polio and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

However, many more efforts are needed to control a wide range of diseases and address many different persistent and emerging health issues."

The EU-funded Research Project
This innovation was developed under the Horizon 2020 project MATUROLIFE with an end date of 31/05/2021
  • Read more about this project on CORDIS
Description of Project MATUROLIFE
Urban areas are seeing an increasing population of older people and existing approaches to care for them are becoming unsustainable creating a European wide societal challenge. Assistive technology can provide them with security that will enable them to live independently e.g. wearing alarms and tracking devices around the arm or neck to alert carers to falls or their location if they wander. However such technology is often unsightly and stigmatises the user resulting in high abandonment rates. The MATUROLIFE project will integrate creative artists and fashion designers into the research team to facilitate design-driven innovation. The project will build on existing technological advances in materials which have produced a highly innovative selective metallisation process that utilises nanotechnology, electrochemistry and materials science to encapsulate fibres in textiles with metal and thereby provide conductivity and electronic connectivity. In this way, better integration of electronics and sensors into fabrics and textiles will be possible. This will give the fashion designers and artists the tools to produce AT for older people that is not only functional but is more desirable and appealing as well as being lighter and more comfortable. Building on exiting best practice the consortium will include societal stakeholder groups representing end users (i.e. older people) who will be heavily involved in the design process as well as giving feedback and direction on the development of AT prototypes contributing significantly to end-user acceptance. The prototypes will demonstrate proof of concept and the industrial scalability of the selective metallisation process will be validated. Thus, the project will end at TRL7. The Assistive Technology produced as a result of the project will benefit all the SMEs in the consortium but particularly those in the creative sector who expect to see sustainable growth and an increase in jobs as a direct result of the project.

Innnovation Radar's analysis of this innovation is based on data collected on 11/08/2021.
The unique id of this innovation in the European Commission's IT systems is: 18595