Healthy Cognitive Longevity Innovation (COGINNO)

Group Leader: Dr. Burcu Demiray

Overview

COGINNO builds on unique research expertise on the analytics for real-life cognitive activities in late life (e.g., learning) and the unique technology of age-tech solutions that boost cognitive activities (e.g., OldSchool, e-learning platform). We foster innovation by (a) developing and using innovative real-life methods (e.g., smartphone sensing), tools (e.g., OldSchool) and data analytics (e.g., machine learning), (b) developing and testing age-friendly content, (c) actively engaging in startup and business development, (d) training students and research colleagues via courses and workshops on healthy longevity innovation, and (e) bringing research and startup ecosystems together.

Applied Research and Innovation Potential

COGINNO conducts applied research on understanding and promoting healthy cognitive activities in Generation 60+. Two examples of our technology are as follows: (1) With OldSchool, we are developing an e-learning platform for seniors with senior-oriented course content, course formats and usability/user experience. The long-term goal is to create an academic online learning platform for seniors across Europe (ERASMUS+60 Project). (2) In other projects (e.g., MOASIS, Swiss EAR Study), we collect, analyze and psychologically interpret real-life audio data and continuously feed into a large database of “sounds of healthy aging”. We are working towards developing innovations and business opportunities around the curation and analysis of these real-life big data (e.g., app development, intervention development).

Data Access and Exchange

COGINNO uses state-of-the-art micro-longitudinal, multi-domain datasets acquired since 2015 from healthy older individuals. These datasets include measures of cognitive ability, self-report, real-life audio data, real-life activity and context information.