The Longevity Explorers are a unique sharing, evaluation, and ideation community — made up of older adults (in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s), and their friends, families, and caregivers.
Introduction to the Longevity Explorers
View this video of Richard Caro describing the Longevity Explorer initiative in a talk at the American Society on Aging, March 2018.
Explorers of the Future of Aging and the Longevity Economy
The Longevity Explorers community includes circles of older adults who meet regularly face-to-face, as well as a larger “virtual” community of explorers who participate via the Tech-enhanced Life website and email.
We believe a variety of socio-economic and demographic factors will change greatly the experience of aging for us and for those who come after us. We know some of the current paradigms of growing older need to change. And we want to influence these changes.
We see ourselves as “explorers” of the future of aging. We want to explore new approaches to living as we grow older, and new products and services. We see the community of Longevity Explorers as a place to explore new ideas and a place where innovative people come to learn how we think about growing older, and to get help developing new and better products and services for future generations.
This community leverages the insights, and years of accumulated wisdom, of older adults themselves to accelerate the emergence of novel solutions to some of the challenges of aging. We are especially interested in technology-enabled products that can push off the time at which functional decline gets in the way of living life to the full.
Demographics
The vast majority of Longevity Explorers are over 65. Some are as old as 100, with many in their 80’s and 90’s. Explorers include both men and women.
Most of the explorers live either in their own homes or in independent living sections of CCRC’s. Some live in Assisted Living residences, and some live in their own homes and have home carers.
The majority of explorers live in the USA, with a sizeable contingent in Canada, and some in other countries. Within North America, explorers come from a wide range of locations scattered all across the USA and Canada, including both large urban areas and smaller towns, and many different states.
The explorer community is open to all, and we encourage a range of ideas, and intellectual opinions, and welcome all people types to join us.
Purpose, Goals, Activities
For more details, you can read this description of our purpose, goals, and activities — developed by Longevity Explorer community members.
Business Model
The Longevity Explorer community has been funded primarily by Tech-enhanced Life, PBC during its first few years of life, with support from several non-profit organizations that host individual circles. We are working on a business model that will make the Longevity Explorer community financially self-sustaining, and generate economic benefit for the explorers.
Want to be a Longevity Explorer?
Interested in becoming a Longevity Explorer? Or in getting a new circle of explorers started in your neighbourhood?