IBM and Apple are teaming-up with Japan Post Group to improve the quality of life for millions of Japanese senior citizens. Built on the global partnership Apple and IBM announced last year, the new initiative will deliver iPads with IBM-developed apps and analytics to connect millions of seniors with services, healthcare, community and their families.
Apple will provide iPads, while IBM will chip in with its cloud platform and a number of apps for reminders and alerts about medications, exercise and diet, along with direct access to community activities and supporting services such as grocery shopping and job matching. These apps will feature text analytics and accessibility technologies, many invented in IBM Research – Tokyo, including Japanese natural language analysis and tracking to guide seniors and make the experience more natural.
Japan Post Group will begin the pilot service in the second half of this year, and will expand in stages to eventually reach 4-5 million users by 2020.Finally, Japan Post Group will back the project with its nationwide infrastructure that can cover the “last mile” to virtually every citizen of Japan. In addition to 24,000 post offices and a workforce of 400,000, Japan Post Group has existing financial relationships with nearly all of the 115 million adults in Japan.
“The potential we see here — as broad as national economics and as specific as the quality of life of individuals and their families — is one example of the potential of mobile-led transformation anywhere in the world where issues of an aging population exist,” said Ginni Rometty, President, Chairman and CEO of IBM.
Japan Post Group already offers the so called “Watch Over” service, which involves mail carriers checking in on elderly customers to assure families about the well-being of their relatives. That service can now be extended and enhanced with iPad, complementing the in-person monitoring. The company will begin the pilot service in the second half of this year, and will expand in stages to eventually reach 4-5 million users in Japan by 2020.
Today more than 33 million seniors make up about 25 percent of Japan’s population, projected to grow to 40 percent over the next 40 years.