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Overview • Section 1.2 will focus on how to provide specific support to 1
gerontech start-ups.
The “supply-side” of the gerontech ecosystem refers to • Section 1.3 will focus on how to improve the import and
organisations and individuals that design, create, and supply export flow of gerontech products and services in and out of
gerontech products and services to consumers. As identified in Hong Kong. Supply-side
our first report, suppliers face numerous challenges. For example,
there is limited public funding for start-ups (Gap 9); Hong Kong’s 1.1 User Feedback
gerontech market remains small (Gap 15); and there are no
One of the key findings from our research is the lack of
testing grounds or easy way to access user feedback (Gap 13).
possibilities for suppliers to get reliable access to user
Yet, compared to 2017, our survey reveals that while stakeholders
feedback. As Figure 9 illustrates, user feedback is critical to
believe there have been some improvements related to supply-side
every stage of product development. User feedback is especially
challenges, there is still much that can be done to further improve
important to gerontech because many elders and persons
the situation.
with disabilities have specific health or social needs; as such,
gerontech is an industry where products need to be particularly
Given Hong Kong’s general gerontech ecosystem expansion
user-centric. This need is particularly exacerbated by the fact
in recent years, there has been a corresponding increase in
that most product developers will be younger people who will
the quantity and quality of gerontech suppliers. As a result of
not have much first-hand understanding or experience of elders’
this market development, there is a need to further differentiate
and PwDs’ user needs.
between different types of suppliers to better determine their
corresponding challenges and opportunities. In particular, we
Therefore, the lack of opportunities to obtain user feedback in
need to differentiate between global versus local organisations,
early stages will lead to the design of user-unfriendly products;
as well as between companies of different size. This is because
lack of user feedback in the middle stages will lead to the
these different types of organisations have varying types of
manufacturing of user-unfriendly and ineffective products; lack of
support needs, which we will highlight throughout this chapter.
user feedback following the purchasing of products will lead to
inability to create better future versions of the product. As such,
This chapter consists of three sub-sections:
our recommendations will discuss potential ways to provide user
• Section 1.1 will focus on how to provide all suppliers with
feedback across the different stages of product development.
more opportunities for user feedback to help with the
enhancement of gerontech products throughout the product
development cycle.
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