JST: SCC-PG: Bridging the Digital Gap and Identifying Cross-Cultural Pathways for Adoption of IoT Technologies to Support Super-Aging Societies in the U.S. and Japan

老龄化是一个公认的全球性社会问题。预计从现在到2050年，世界上每个国家60岁以上的公民数量都将大幅增加。此外，到2020年将出现十几个超老龄化社会，其中超过五分之一的人口年龄在65岁或以上。特别是美国和日本，正经历着急剧的人口老龄化，并有一些相似之处。这项规划赠款将汇集各学科和国家之间的专家，探索研究和开发有效的战略，以解决健康老龄化问题。具体来说，为了实现NSF智能互联社区和日本社会5.0和可持续发展倡议的雄心勃勃的目标，并满足日益增长的社会期望，需要实现值得信赖、可靠、安全、可靠和有效的智能互联技术，以在生活的各个方面赋予老年人权力。尽管正在进行努力，但在老年人社区中辅助技术的采用和用户可接受性方面仍然存在重大的数字差距。此外，跨文化和社会经济因素在实现可扩展性方面起着重要作用。JST:SCC-PG提案汇集了来自两个国家四个机构的多学科研究团队，分别是美国的UMBC和东北大学，以及日本的九州大学和庆应义塾大学。该团队的研究专长涵盖相关学科，包括老年学、社会学、健康科学、可持续社会决策科学、信息系统、网络安全、网络物理系统、机器人和计算机科学。该团队以国际共识为基础，将比任何单一国家的研究团队更有效地实现创新。该团队不仅在研究领域，而且在设施、最佳实践、网络基础设施（例如云计算和大数据服务器）以及硬件和软件设计方面拥有全面的专业知识。这JST:S&amp；CC-PG将专注于团队建设、以用户为中心的设计理念和社区参与活动，在美国和日本研究人员之间发展紧密和可持续的合作，以实现基于物联网、信息和通信技术、人工智能、数据科学、信托服务、安全和辅助机器人的新数字解决方案，以支持超老龄化社会，并培养新的科学家、工程师、技术专家骨干。以及认识到全球社会挑战的企业家。该计划资助的目标是向NSF和JST提出一项综合研究资助提案，应用这些关键技术创建智能和互联社区，以应对超老龄化社会的主要挑战。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Aging is a recognized global societal issue. It is expected that between now and 2050, every Nation in the world will see a substantial increase in their number of citizens older than 60. Furthermore, there will be more than a dozen super-aged societies in 2020, where more than one in five of the population is 65 years or older. The U.S. and Japan, specifically, are experiencing dramatic population aging and share several similarities. This planning grant will bring together experts bridging disciplines and countries to explore research and development of effective strategies to address healthy aging. Specifically, to achieve the ambitious goals of NSF’s Smart and Connected Communities and Japan’s Society 5.0 and Sustainable Development initiatives and to meet the growing societal expectations, there is a need to realize trustworthy, reliable, safe, secure, and effective smart and connected technologies to empower older adults in all aspects of life. Despite ongoing efforts, there remains a significant digital gap in adoption and user acceptability of assistive technologies among older adult communities. Furthermore, cross-cultural and socio-economic factors play a significant role in achieving scalability. This JST:SCC-PG proposal assembled a convergent, multi-disciplinary team of researchers from four institutions across two Nations, UMBC and Northeastern University from the U.S. and Kyushu University and Keio University from Japan. The research expertise within the team covers relevant disciplines including gerontology, sociology, health sciences, decision science for sustainable society, information systems, cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems, robotics, and computer science. Built upon international consensus, the team will realize innovation far more effectively than any single-nation research team. The team collectively has comprehensive expertise in not just the research areas, but has facilities, best practices, cyber-infrastructure (e.g., cloud-computing and big data servers), and hardware and software design expertise. This JST: S&CC-PG will focus on team-building, user-centered design ideation, and community participation activities to develop a tight and sustainable collaboration among U.S. and Japan researchers to realize new digital solutions based on Internet of Things, Information and Communication Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Trust Services, Security, and Assistive robotics in support of super-aging societies and to educate a new cadre of scientists, engineers, technologists, and entrepreneurs cognizant of global societal challenges. The goal of this Planning Grant is to develop an Integrative Research Grant proposal to NSF and JST, applying these key technologies to create Smart and Connected Communities that address the key challenges of super-aging societies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.