Digital Urban Center for Aging & Health | DUCAH

At the Digital Urban Center for Aging & Health (DUCAH), scientists conduct research at the intersection of digitization, urbanization and health - in urban neighborhoods, care neighborhoods and hospitals. The Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), together with the Internet and Society Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), is one of the founding initiators of the interdisciplinary research center, which sees itself as an "accelerator for economic and technical, urban and social innovation in favor of preventive health and dignified aging." The ECDF is represented by PI Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Schildhauer and Prof. Dr. Dr. Felix Balzer, who (co)initiated the project. With Felix Balzer as well as the professors Felix Biessmann, Leonid Goubergrits, Max von Grafenstein, Berit Greinke, Christian Meske, Philipp Staab, Rita Streblow, Florian Tschorsch and ECDF associate Daniel Fürstenau, a total of ten ECDF scientists are significantly driving DUCAH research forward.     

With its interdisciplinary orientation, the center wants to ensure that different perspectives are heard. The questions addressed include: How can companies successfully collaborate with other players in the healthcare sector to develop new approaches for improved healthcare solutions? Do new technologies help older people to cope with their daily lives in a more empowered way? How can individual data control and user sovereignty be comprehensively ensured so that, for example, data donations can be used for medical research?

The ECDF contributes to the center primarily with its research expertise in the areas of digital infrastructures, methods and algorithms, digital health, digital society and digital industry and services. The planned research projects will focus, for example, on the use of artificial intelligence in care, wearables in heart failure and platforms in the care sector. 

The goal of DUCAH is to provide better support for nurses, caregivers, relatives and physicians with digital technologies in a humane, ethical and sustainable manner. Scientific analyses and their practical transfer are to lead to prototypes that will continue to receive scientific support.