Artificial intelligence is often considered a tool that younger people use for advancement, but one company is finding a way to combine the old with the new.
ActivAge, a senior citizen day care, plans to open its new $5 million, 16,000 square-foot headquarters in Sarasota through a partnership with ConnectCareHero, a digital infrastructure platform.
ConnectCareHero is a Netflix-like software that tracks what users are most interested in by picking up insights.
"Our technology gives access to over 20 categories of pre-recorded and live interactive classes," said ConnectCareHero founder Osvaldo Montelongo. "We have over nine languages that we offer on our platform, and one of the things that makes us unique in the space is our recommendation engine that gets to know the community preferences through repetition."
Kris Chana, founder of ActivAge, attributed the need for engagement technology to a healthier lifestyle for older people.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, poor social relationships are associated with a 29% increased risk of coronary heart disease and a 32% increased risk of stroke.
"It's our goal to keep our members engaged at all times. We use ConnectCareHero's technology as a base. It helps us form micro-groups of three to four people instead of 50 to make it more creative," said Chana.
The ConnectHero program splits participants into multiple groups, evaluates their interests and then pre-schedules events to allow staff to follow prompts on a screen.
The activities, based on the facility resources (desktops, tablets, TVs, smartphones), include uploaded videos of entertainers performing magic, comedy, music and cooking shows, among other content.
The company has plans to expand beyond Sarasota, looking to franchise in the coming years.
"We're doing a $2.1 million renovation to this building to create this like Margaritaville vibe that creates the ultimate vacation for families and their loved ones, which will allow us to serve around 90 people per day in that location," Chana stated. "Our goal is to scale through franchising to about 500 locations by 2035."
Meanwhile, Montelongo told Tampa Bay Inno that ConnectCareHero plans to build on the technology to expand to more senior living facilities in the future.
