Home automation: the Limousin is a breeding ground for excellence in future construction
Never before have innovations reached so many households. This proliferation makes the market increasingly complex but also gives rise to massive new opportunities for innovative manufacturers.
In the Limousin, the Home Automation Cluster and Santé de Guéret, run by the Guéret St-Vaury Community of Municipalities, is an innovative project which uses integrated technology solutions designed for individual and collective housing to improve the comfort, safety, communications and independence of the ageing population.
In June 2007 the Cluster was awarded the trophy for innovation and research by the business press. It sees itself as the benchmark zone for trialling new home automation technology to meet the needs of people of reduced independence. It has become a partner in European R&D projects. In November 2007, the Limousin region, the first French region to become a member of the SEN@ER network (which aims to pool experience in order to improve the well-being of elderly people), was awarded – along with the Home Automation Cluster and Santé de Guéret – the Best Practice Award 2007.This prize rewards all initiatives implemented in the region in order to develop an economy linked to population ageing.
In this context, which indicates that the Limousin region is setting the pace in care for the elderly at a national and European level (in 2010 25% of the French population will be over 65), the future is bright for the development of home automation. In the Limousin, all parties from a single region lined up behind the project, granting it a regional dimension: the rural excellence centre, the Jean-Favard high school, the La Creuse general council, the Guéret Saint-Vaury community of municipalities, the consular chambers (CMA 23 and CCI), the Limousin Regional Council, the departmental professional federations (FFB and CAPEB), the University of Limoges, AFPA de Guéret, institutions caring for dependent elderly people, the Noth centre for physiotherapy and functional rehabilitation (CRRF), the St Feyre MGNE centre, Guéret hospital and businesses (Legrand group, Axione Limousin, Centrelec).
The project is ambitious: transforming people’s day-to-day experience of ageing by boosting employment, supporting and improving care for elderly people and developing citizen services.
|
|
|
