On September 30, Eun Seong-ho, Director General of the Population and Social Services Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, visited the Kyung Hee University Age-Tech Comprehensive Support Center and the Samsung Noble County senior housing complex in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, to review their operations and listen to feedback from those on the ground.
This visit was organized to explore ways to integrate cutting-edge age-friendly technologies—such as artificial intelligence (AI) and care robots—into daily life, and to establish a new senior housing infrastructure that combines housing with advanced technology, enabling seniors to live healthy lives in their familiar surroundings as they age. Twenty-two people attended the event, including officials from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, the Age-Tech Comprehensive Support Center, and representatives from Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Noble Life.
The AgeTech Comprehensive Support Center provides integrated support for age-friendly products, from planning through commercialization. Its goal is to create community-based demonstration infrastructure centered on actual users, such as seniors and care workers. Currently, five centers are in operation: the Keimyung University Usability Evaluation Research Center (Daegu), the Busan Technopark Bio-Health Center, the Gwangju Technopark Industrial Technology Demonstration Center, the Seongnam Senior Industry Innovation Center, and the Kyung Hee University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation (Yongin). The centers are responsible for demand-driven product planning; consulting on development and improvement; verifying reliability, safety, and usability through living lab demonstrations; conducting usability evaluations of outstanding age-friendly products and developing guidelines; and operating exhibition and experience spaces.
Located on Kyung Hee University’s International Campus in Yongin, the Kyung Hee University Center has a floor area of 3,008 square meters and is equipped with 13 laboratories—including a healthcare living lab—as well as lecture rooms and approximately 80 pieces of equipment across 18 categories, such as fixed infrared cameras and mobility testing devices. This year, the center has completed 16 usability evaluations of outstanding age-friendly products and is currently providing technical maturity improvement consulting to two companies and conducting a pilot project on smart diapers. The center has conducted approximately 50 pilot studies and research projects, including a pilot of a walking assistance robot for care staff at long-term care facilities, and has established cooperative frameworks with 68 domestic institutions and 81 overseas institutions across 21 countries.
Director Eun toured the center’s usability evaluation facilities—where seniors test digital care devices firsthand to verify their convenience and safety—as well as the Living Lab demonstration facilities and equipment, before discussing strategies to promote age-friendly technologies. He then moved on to Samsung Noble County, a partner institution of the center, to examine examples of advanced technologies—such as AI—applied to residential spaces and to discuss ways to enhance the convenience and safety of seniors’ daily lives through age-friendly products.
Director Eun stated, “The core of welfare in a super-aged society lies in creating an environment where seniors can live independently in the places they choose, and to achieve this, we must actively integrate cutting-edge age-friendly technologies—such as AI and care robots—into their daily lives.” He added, “To ensure that proven advanced technologies and services are seamlessly integrated into the actual living spaces of seniors, such as senior welfare housing, we will spare no effort in providing policy support—including the promotion of senior-friendly technologies, such as the development of AI care robots, and the inclusion of advanced senior-friendly products under the Long-Term Care Insurance program as assistive devices.”
