Tokyo/Jakarta, 1 October 2024: The Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) and ERIA today announced the winners of the 2024 Healthy Aging Prize for Asian Innovation (HAPI). This prize, a collaboration between JCIE and ERIA, is part of the Japanese government’s Asia Health and Wellbeing Initiative.

HAPI is notable for its wide-ranging eligibility, welcoming applications from community organisations, NPOs, associations, local governments, businesses, and more across the region. This allows these entities to demonstrate their innovations in addressing interconnected issues related to aging. Introduced at a time when Asia faces rapid demographic shifts, the award is particularly timely. According to UN estimates, East and Southeast Asia will see their populations aged 65 and older nearly double to 557 million by 2050.

The 2024 edition, which marks the fourth year of this award, received a significant number of applications from 12 countries or regions in East and Southeast Asia. There was an increase in submissions from Thailand and the Philippines, with a Filipino organisation winning for the first time. Many applications this year focused on lifelong learning, offering older adults educational and income-generating opportunities.

An international committee of seven experts from across the region selected the winners. Grand Prize and Second Prize recipients were recognised in three categories: Technology & Innovation, Community-Based Initiatives, and Supporting Self-Reliance.

Japan-based Nurse & Craft won the Grand Prize in the Technology & Innovation category. By leveraging telemedicine and IoT-based healthcare solutions, the company provides home nursing services for older people living on the remote island of Osaki Shimojima. In the Community-Based Initiatives category, Padyarescue Inc. from the Philippines took home the top prize for its Go Bike Project, in which young volunteers ride bicycles to visit communities in disaster-prone areas and monitor the health of older residents there. The winner for the Supporting Self-Reliance category was the School of Lifelong Education from Thailand’s Chiang Mai University, recognised for teaching older adults digital and occupational skills to help them generate income and remain self-reliant.

Three organisations were awarded Second Prizes. Singapore’s Lions Befrienders Service Association won in the Technology & Innovation category for developing tablet devices that allow older adults to report their daily well-being. Also from Singapore, Thye Hua Kwan Moral Charities claimed the Community-Based Initiatives prize for its Micro-Jobs Program, which encourages healthy older people to assist frailer peers with daily tasks. The Graduate School of Medicine at Tokushima University, Japan, in collaboration with Beauty Life Corp., was awarded in the Supporting Self-Reliance category for providing evidence-based exercises for nursing home residents.

Other than the main prizes, the committee presented the 2024 Special Prize for Care Network Development to CARE-Net, a digital platform created by three South Korean organisations. This platform successfully integrates healthcare, welfare, and long-term care services in a depopulated area. The Special Prize also included three Honourable Mentions, awarded to the Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing, YoungHappy Plus Co., Ltd from Thailand, and Thammasat Business School’s Ageing Business and Care Development Centre (ABCD), also from Thailand.

The Grand Prize and Special Prize winners will receive their awards in January 2025, at a special ceremony held in Bangkok, Thailand.