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With the current ageing population trend, caregivers and Gerontech Landscape Report 1.0
institutions will struggle to cope with the large influx of elderly
patients in the coming years. This will increase the number of In the Gerontech Landscape Report 1.0, OHKF introduced 72
individuals suffering from caregiver burden, which is the strain gerontech products and services, which were further classified
borne by a person who cares for a chronically ill, disabled, or into four categories: Healthcare (醫), Diet (食), Living (住), and Introduction
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elderly family member. Heavy amounts of caregiver burden Transport (行). This categorisation of gerontech products has
result in decreased care provision, decrease in quality of life, remained influential within the development of Hong Kong’s
and physical and psychological health deterioration (Liu, gerontech ecosystem in the past few years. 8
Heffernan & Tan, 2020). As gerontech promotes ageing-in-place,
preventive health practices and medical-social collaboration, Aside from introducing various types of gerontech products
these technologies may also increase efficiency and alleviate available in Hong Kong and overseas markets, the report further
the pressure on and workload of both institutional and identified 24 gaps facing the ecosystem (Table 1). As Hong
informal caregivers. Kong’s gerontech industry was still in preliminary stages of
development in 2017, the 24 identified gaps represented areas
In sum, while gerontech can by no means solve all the challenges of insufficiency and opportunities for development within Hong
of an ageing society, it has far-reaching impact with potential to Kong’s gerontech ecosystem. Among the 24 gaps identified,
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empower our elders to age-in-place with dignity, within the comforts OHKF further identified five key gaps:
of the community, and reduce the overall burden on scarce public
resources and manpower. (1) Lack of awareness of gerontechnology
(2) Lack of collaboration between stakeholders
(3) Start-ups fall victim to the “Valley of Death” funding gap
(4) Cultural differences and difficulties in product localisation
(5) Lack of testing ground for new products

7 Despite the increasing number of people suffering from caregiver burden, Hong Kong does not yet have a comprehensive carer policy. The Government is currently completing
a study on how to support carers, following various instances when other organisations encouraged the Government to adopt such a policy (LegCo The Chief Executive’s Policy
Address Supplement—Caring, 2021; HKCSS, 2020, April; EOC, 2019). Other jurisdictions such as Taiwan, Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have introduced legislation
that recognise the statutory right of carers, enabling them to obtain various support services from their governments (LegCo, 2020, March 9). In Hong Kong, the SWD operates a
Carer Support Service page, which includes a Pilot Scheme on Living Allowance for Carers of the Elderly Persons from Low Income Families (SWD Carer Support Service, 2021).
The scheme aims to provide carers of elderly persons from low-income families with a living allowance to help elders age at home (SWD Pilot Scheme, 2021). There is not yet any
scheme to help caregivers of PwDs.
For example, even newer gerontechnology showrooms such as Lingnan University’s Gerontech-X Lab, which was established in late 2019, display and explain gerontechnology
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products based on the four dimensions of healthcare, diet, living, and transport (LingnanU X-Lab, 2021). Similarly, the Jockey Club ‘age at home’ Gerontech Education and Rental Service
Centre provides public education on gerontech via guided tours that also explain gerontech products based on these four categories of products (Jockey Club age at home, 2021).
9 The identification of these gaps has assisted the industry and Government to introduce strategic gerontech initiatives to expedite Hong Kong’s gerontech ecosystem
development. For example, following the publication of OHKF’s Gerontechnology Landscape Report, SIE Fund and HKCSS held gerontech stakeholder engagement activities that
provided discussion opportunities on how to improve the 24 gaps identified (SIE Fund, 2017). As a result of feedback collected from these discussions, SIE Fund worked alongside
HKCSS for many years to develop the city-wide Gerontechnology Platform, one of the most ambitious and wide-reaching gerontech initiatives in the city to date (SIE Fund, 2021).
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