Greenwich Embraces Network of Aging2.0

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By Anne W. Semmes

Steven Katz and Lori Contadino director of Greenwich’s Commision on Aging.

The Town of Greenwich is adding a new dimension to its already impressive efforts to provide a place of innovation, wellness and caring for its growing aging population. The Town is presently in the midst of qualifying to receive the designation as an Age Friendly Community from the AARP and the World Health Organization.

On Tuesday March 20, the Greenwich Chapter of Aging2.0, will hold its first chapter meeting. Aging2.0  is a global network with a mission to improve the lives of older adults. The nonprofit, created in 2012 in San Francisco and now represented worldwide, supports innovators taking on the challenges and opportunities of our longer living populations.

“In my 30-plus years in the field,” says Lori Contadino, director of Greenwich’s Commission on Aging, “I have never seen anything like this in terms of people coming together from various sectors for the purpose of understanding the issues at hand and mutually working together toward a resolution regarding a wide range of challenges that older adults face.”

Contadino describes Aging2.0 as “creating a new aging ecosystem where entrepreneurs,  designers, and innovators meet and dialog with investors, government entities, long term care providers, not-for-profits, and older adults themselves.”

“Never before has there been an opportunity or forum for all of us to come together as an aggregate with a shared goal in mind,” says Contadino, “That is the exciting piece for me.”

Serving as “Ambassador” of the Aging2.0 March 20 kickoff event to be held at Centro Ristorante & Bar restaurant is Steven B. Katz who serves as vice-chairman of the Commission. Katz, who heads Sterling Care, a local homecare provider he started in 2009, has followed the Aging2.0 movement since 2013, learning of it while attending Columbia University for his Masters of Public Health.

“I saw Aging2.0 having started a lot of worldwide chapters,” says Katz. “I thought it a good time to bring it to Greenwich both with what the Commission on Aging is doing with Age Friendly in Greenwich along with the efforts that the town was trying to achieve in attracting new and innovative businesses to our community.”

Katz reported that not only was the March 20 event nearly sold out at this writing – with 46 of 50 places taken, but that the Chapter had attracted 120 or so members, with seven “Street Team” volunteers signed on to help realize the Aging2.0 initiatives. The nonprofit takes no money or fees.

“We hope to start a kind of ecosystem,” says Katz, “of entrepreneurs, providers of aging, academics, technologists, and venture capitalists, to come together around new concepts of aging, bringing into Greenwich the different things people are doing around the world, also establishing the environment for those kind of startups within Greenwich. This is what we hope to get out of the event.”

Attending the event says Katz is a Greenwich entrepreneur developing a website similar to the home decorating website Houzz that will help older adults “age in place, offering them aging in place products they will need, services of people who are able to install them, and to evaluate your home.” But for Aging2.0 says Katz,  “You would never really know that this type of business is starting-up right here in Greenwich.”

Katz emphasized the audience Aging2.0 seeks to involve – “to have people who are involved includes older adults themselves wanting to help in the design of products made for them.” Aging2.0 has a name for these people says Katz, “It’s called a CEO – a chief elder officer, and a lot of them are involved in how things are designed or tested. It could just be a retired executive interested in being a part of things being developed.”

At the kickoff event Katz will address what Aging2.0 has on its agenda going forward.

“We’ll be working on speakers, pitch competitions, fireside chats, and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs, venture capital, academics, providers and older adults. We will be sending out newsletters to those on our mailing list about people who are starting companies, and what may be new in the aging space.”

“Greenwich is a special community with a lot of interesting people who have a lot of talent,” Katz adds. “Greenwich is a very good place for Aging2.0.”

Looking forward Contadino is cheered she says by the “wide cross section of individuals who have joined our Greenwich Chapter, who want to be part of this incredible movement. Our goal, where it may be quite robust, is by the end of the calendar year to have 300 Aging2.0 Chapter members.”

She cited that of the current Greenwich population of 62,359, “eighteen percent of the population is 65 and older resulting in approximately 11,225 individuals.” “By 2020 there will be 19.5 percent of Greenwich residents 65 or older. By 2030, 18 percent of the entire U.S. population will be over 65.” What is most startling with these figures, says Contadino, “In 2050 one in five Americans will be 65 or older. That is a staggering statistic.”

For more information, visit aging2.com/greenwich

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