On 17 November, Hirokazu Kato from Japan's Nara Institute of Science and Technology, one of the fathers of Augmented Reality (AR), landed in Bologna. AR is one of the emerging disciplines in several fields including Industry 4.0.
Despite the limitations related to the current pandemic, the colleague decided to come for two main reasons: the joint UNITN-APSS Ausilia project on which Prof. De Cecco and Prof. Nollo are collaborating for our department, and to follow up on the international Erasmus+ ICM project in which an MoU is active at university level.
The aim of Ausilia, as we know, is to maximise the autonomy of the elderly and frail people thanks to emerging technologies in order to promote their independence once they are out of hospital. This is one of the issues that pose a socio-economic challenge to more developed countries such as Europe and Japan. The same challenge has become even more significant if we consider the risks of the pandemic that has claimed so many victims in institutions for the elderly and frail people.