On 16th and 17th of May the meeting on MyMate project took place in Bucharest, in the offices of both Ana Aslan International Foundation and Singular Logic Romania. The main points on the agenda were state of Validation in each center, Validation Plan, Dissemination as well as general plan for the months ahead.
Regarding the Validation plan, a representative from each center displayed their current status and progress on the project, as well as the barriers and difficulties encountered. Suggestions and recommendations were made in regard with each other experiences and new approaches have been brought into discussion.
Moreover, it was highly agreed that MyMate has a positive impact on the quality of life of the Primary End Users. The application proved to be intuitive and easy to use, both as a tertiary and secondary end user, although some minor improvements were suggested in order to make thing even easier.
Using MyMate we discovered that our Secondary End Users are more motivated to complete their missions, mainly due to the gamification concept that lays behind the application.
Earlier on this year, the consortium has made the decision to remain active in the AAL field taking into consideration national constraints where applicable. We have opted for a Small Collaborative project exploring the potential of a reward system based on MyMate principles. The final tasks prior to submission were allocated during the second day of the meeting. When it comes to dissemination, news and achievements were posted on MyMate website and the newly created Facebook Page so that it can be more visible to the online environment. ANA used the MyMate project as one of its point of interests for their senior volunteers with the aim of establishing a Community of Active Seniors. Through the volunteers and the community itself the project awareness highly improved.
Another topic intensely debated focused on the barriers to launching MyMate as a commercial project. Market availability, offers and impact MyMate can have if made commercial are among the most important subjects that required thorough attention from the meeting attendees. Market opportunities regarding every country participating in the project were discussed and a few guidelines were established.
In the end, a general plan for the following months was set up. In addition, strategies for attracting funds that can launch MyMate on the market as a commercial project were established as well.