Åsa Zetterberg at the conference 'Welfare technology towards the future'

Digital infrastructure Welfare technology Welfare technology

Director Åsa Zetterberg participated in the conference 'Welfare technology towards the future' organized by the Swedish Agency for Participation. The conference focused on municipalities' use of welfare technology and how the use can be improved. 

What was your most important message today?
That there are already a lot of fantastic welfare technology solutions that need to reach out more widely to people and organizations. There is a matching problem between all the solutions that exist and that the market offers and the needs of the individual. We need to help people to help themselves to a greater extent. They need to be informed about all the solutions available and become a driving force in ensuring that these solutions are used. All too often, individuals have no or very little information about what help is available.

How can matching be improved?
Perhaps we have put too much faith in authorities, municipalities, regions and assistive technology centers, that they have the most important role. But it may not be reasonable, possible or even desirable to give them such a large role individually. It will also be a very long process before the technology and help gets all the way out to those who really need it. Perhaps we should think more about how we can increase the direct matching between the individual with support needs and the market with welfare technology products and services?

If you were to look into the future, what would you say about tomorrow's welfare technology?
In the future, we will continue to see very exciting and rapid developments where new innovative and intelligent solutions will emerge. Everything from smart homes, to connected things and people, monitors, tests, self-driving vehicles, robotics, AI, etc. This will revolutionize the way health and care is delivered over time.

What needs to be done going forward?
Swedish welfare and the public sector have so much to gain by doing everything it can to attract investment, innovation and entrepreneurship. In Sweden, we have every opportunity to create the best of solutions for the individual, an internationally strong market and new export successes in this area. But then the public sector must also make it more attractive and possible for the market to deliver welfare.