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The Municipality of Schwechat in the County of Lower Austria has about 16.000 inhabitants and is located at the border of Austria’s capital Vienna. The Vienna International Airport in Schwechat can be seen as a “door to the world”. Although Schwechat has a historical background, it is a modern industrial town by now, with a mature industry and offers more than 18.000 jobs. Schwechat is also strongly interested in the creation of a competence in the area of ICT. Part of this eSCHWECHAT initiative is the research institute CEIT Raltec, which deals with topics of Ambient Assisted Living. By this the Municipality wants to improve the situation and care for elderly people. In this context also the project “LivingLab” will be a main topic in research for the next years. The whole city will serve as a living laboratory where new ideas and products can be tested under real life conditions, which will definitely lead to a new form of user involvement. Schwechat ist member of the European Network of Living Labs (http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/schwechat.html).

The Municipality’s responsibilities are also activities in the interest of city’s senior citizens. For this purpose the municipality operates the so called “Seniorenzentrum” (senior’s centre), which operates itself homes for independent, supportable living, a day care centre and a nursing home for the elderly. Furthermore the senior’s centre acts as the local communication and coordination platform to all other service and caretaking organisations for the elderly within the area of Schwechat.

The “Seniorenzentrum” is also a part of the LivingLab initiative and provides the possibility to test and evaluate developments and products in the area of Ambient Assisted Living, which leads to a WIN-WIN situation for the city, the elderly people and research partners in Schwechat.