Fit the Future Project – Holland

AHT Netherlands is participating in the Fit the Future research program of the University of Applied Science in Arnhem which focuses on elderly people. Due to the baby boom in the sixties and seventies, the Dutch population has an unbalance in its demographic structure. For the next decades, society will have to deal with a greater amount of elderly people that will live longer. So the policy of the Dutch government is to stimulate older people to stay in their own houses as long as possible instead of going into nursery homes in order to reduce the costs of healthcare. Therefore research is done on how homes can be ‘upgraded’ for this specific group, for example by implementing home automation – “domotics”. In Arnhem a demonstration lab is built, where providers of technologies that are suitable for this group of (future) clients can show their products and are tested by the university. As such, the AHT Outdoor infra-red heating ribbons have been included and are a major part of the project, in order to make the entrance safely accessible under any winter conditions (see AHT Outdoor heating ribbons under the glass bricks in the last photo).