We present the AGNES project, illustrating the design and development of new information technologies to stimulate and support the elderly in their everyday lives. The aim was to provide a feeling of connectedness and safety, sensory stimulation and an increased social network. AGNES provided user-sensitive home-based ICT-environments capable of detecting, communicating and responding to the elderly person’s needs and daily activities.

The approach included the unobtrusive detection of user states and activities, based on inexpensive mass-market components such as web-cams and mobile phones; a social networking technology platform specifically designed to meet the needs of, and be usable by, the elderly person, and providing the communications channel through which people and applications communicate; and ambient interaction devices for the display of information and events and for easy interaction with the home-based system and connected others.

For the success and relevance of such a project, it is vital to include the elderly users as active members of the project, and we outline our approach to this with user groups in Sweden, Spain and Greece.

AGNES is a first step in demonstrating that integrated innovative ICT solutions can produce beneficial effects on the cognitive wellbeing of elderly people by preventing social isolation and mental deterioration.