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The article appears in German as published in Stadtteil Kurier and is written by Sila Weisser.
You can find it here

The translation in English is available below:

_Osterholz. They are spread on three tables. The heads put together. Many teachers would pale with envy at the sight of the concentrated working atmosphere. Every four week senior citizens meet with coffee and cake to tinker on the MobileAge project. They are ten woman and man in the age from 55 to 79.

The group followed a call from the research team consisting of Juliane Jarke, Herbert Kubicek and Ulrike Gerhard from the Insitute for Informationmanagement Bremen (ifib) on the University of Bremen. Their aim is to improve existing digital services for elderly together with the elderly, all of which is going to be tailored for their city district._

Obviously skills in dealing with the internet are required for the future use of the service. “But in large cities the online use of senior citizens is already 70 percent, as project leader Juliane Jarke knows.
Concrete questions for MobileAge include: Where is the next supermarket? With what bus number do I get there? Or has the supermarket even a delivery service? But also the issue of loneliness in later life is considered. Then they think jointly about: Where do we find the opportunities to connect in an informal atmosphere? Are there any alternative forms for living together in later life in my surrounding? Every participant creates new questions spontaneously. They are written down on cards and put up on a pin board as the basis for another brainstorming.

The participants have different motives for their participation. Peter Schnittker for instance uses the meetings to learn something about his district. “I only live here since three years and in this way I want to get to know Osterholz better”, he explains. Similarly, Sabine Bersebach is motivated by a personal concern: “I want to bring people from the district closer together”, explains the 71-year old, who also does voluntary work in the church

“The group is fully involved and it has a good size for effective working”, project leader Juliane Jarke says, who is pleased with the active participation. In the end of May, the three year EU-financed project started. It has partners in Great Britain Spain and Greece. The Lancaster University in UK manages the project.

The first part of the project was about to get to know the everyday life of the participants. For this purpose, the team conducted interviews and the senior citizens kept a diary. While for one of them the mobility radius is limited to the own balcony and the allotment garden, another one goes the city centre often or is mainly active outside of Osterholz. These mobility patterns do not just help to develop applications for elderly who have very different needs. “Some of the participants were surprised how often they use the car. One of them even got himself a pedometer”, Juliane Jarke tells.

Together with the research institute for technology and handicap (FTB), whose staff is responsible for the technical implementation, the work is going to be continued. The plan is to develop a generic prototype until the end of the year. In the end Bremen.online is going to take over and the applications are going to be available to the public on www.bremen.de.

Senior citizens who like to participate in the project are welcome. They are invited to join on Wednesday the 7^th of September. On that date the group meets at 10.30 a.m. in the internet café Eastside, Otto-Bremmer-Allee 44. The participation is for free, coffee & cake as well as the technical equipment is provided. Registration is requested to Juliane Jarke, via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via telephone under 21856586.

Caption: Within the international project “MobileAge”, ten elderly citizens from the Bremen district Osterholz are working on solutions for the improvement of possibilities and mobility. Fellow campaigners are welcome!

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