“Age is an Asset” is a new mantra now

Hyderabad, December 16, 2018: Youth is celebrated. But, old age projected as a burden and dependency. But, this is the thing of past now. This is their “Silver Inning”. They are “Active-Ager’s”. Claims Monimita Sarkar, Founder of Unmukt Festival, the first of its kind of festival on Products and Services for Seniors’ Living. The two day exhibition India’s First and the biggest lifestyle solutions show for Senior Citizens which was underway at Hitex on Saturday and Sunday helped many seniors to realise that they are more than just grandparents, but a contributing part of the society. The festival has done many things to the community. It gave seniors the confidence to overcome barriers of age, health and lead a vibrant life. The retirement life is an exciting life. Sixty is not the old age says Dr. KR Gangadharan, Chairman of Heritage Foundation. Unmukt gave us a platform to celebrate the contribution of seniors and their aspirations for the rest of the senior community, informed Ajith Kumar a visitor. The festival also brought convenience products close to seniors for their comfortable living as well as help them become tech literates. The festival unveiled many trends in seniors living. Don’t underestimate the power of the silver spend. They are emerging as a prominent consumer group owing to their improved financial status commented a representative Guardian Capital who set up a stall at Unmukt Festival organised by KW Conferences. According to a study titled Changing Patterns of Income and Expenditure of Older People in India and an assessment made by New Delhi based Age-Well Foundation, “every fifth senior person earns between Rs 5000 and 10,000/-“. They are not only growing in numbers and living longer but also emerging as an influential consumer section now, he added. By the year 2025, we will have 173 million Senior Population said Srikumar – CEO, CovaiCare. Srikumar adds by the year 2050 the population over 80 years aged in our country will be more than the combined population of Greece and Belgium. Monimita informs that a Global Market Insights report estimates that the Indian geriatric care market is set to gain at 9% CAGR up to 2023 from USD 13.8 billion in revenue for 2015. According to a United Nations Population Fund report one in five Indians will be above the age of 60 by 2050, a total of nearly 300 million people, comprising 19% of the total population. Senior Living is a Sunrise industry. With children stay away in different countries, there is a huge potential for real estate sector to build care assisted homes informs he. That is we see Senior Friendly Apartments, Senior Living Spaces with health care facilities within the premises and Resort Residences for Seniors have become a trend now. And they are getting good response too. Senior citizens are traveling more. Nearly 40 to 50 per cent revenues of certain boutique travel agencies are coming from senior citizens travel she shared. Many seniors are becoming tech savvy just like the youth. Google has organised a series of Workshops on Online Safety both in English and Telugu at the Unmukt Festival. Many seniors have utilised this opportunity. Google executives made a brief presentation on “Online Safety for Senior Citizens” covering four areas: Protecting Online Accounts, Exercising Care when sharing something online; how to identify and avoid scams and how to keep Online conversations Positive and Respectful. Some tips shared were: • Keep your passwords strong, and long minimum 8-9 mixed characters must be used in the combination of lower and upper letters, numbers and symbols, Senior Citizens were told. • Examples were given how to create a strong password. Think of an easy-to-remember sentence. For example, you have two cats at home named Tom and Jerry. Now take the first letter of each word using lowercase and uppercase letters and make “IhtcahnTaJ”. You can even replace letters with numbers or symbols and create a password “Ih2c@hnT&J”. • Use Password Manager to remember many passwords. • Informing seniors to exercise care, they were told to know what they were sharing before they hit send, who are sharing it with and, most importantly, why you are sharing it— do they need to know? • Online scammers use different techniques to trick people into revealing personal and financial details. Some tips were offered to avoid online scams. • Finally, it was recommended to keep online conversations positive and respectful. When you are subjected to Cyberbullying, Mute, Block or Report.