Europe is on the brink of a significant demographic shift that will increase the silver population and a decline in the working age group. This change highlights the importance of addressing the evolving needs of individuals, especially older adults. With this in mind, the European Union and the Baltic Sea Region are leading the way in groundbreaking research in aging and technology-driven services aimed at empowering older adults to live fulfilling lives. The OSIRIS project, funded by the European Union, is a vital initiative in this regard. Its primary focus is on creating a ‘Digital Silver Hub’ that provides solutions specifically designed to tackle the challenges faced by the silver population. The Digital Silver Hub is an ecosystem that fosters collaboration between various stakeholders, including private companies, public institutions, academic organizations, and, most importantly, older adults themselves. This document provides an in-depth exploration of the user dialogue model and system architecture of the Digital Silver Hub, which are the intertwined components driving its functioning. We use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to represent the parts of the platform and show how it brings together collective intelligence to support the silver economy. This research is a testament to the dedication, innovation, and forward-thinking of those committed to improving the quality of life for the silver population. It shows that technology and collaboration can combine to meet the preferences and needs of older adults, ensuring they can live independently with dignity and a strong sense of community. As demographics continue to shift, this research is a step towards a future where aging is not seen as a burden but as an opportunity to celebrate experience, wisdom, and ongoing participation in society.

As the size of the silver generation grows, the demographic shift poses both challenges and opportunities in embracing innovation and technology. This study delves into the challenges and barriers faced by the silver generation when using digital platforms. It focuses on a collective intelligence platform, the Digital Silver Hub, and two age groups of older adults within the silver generation: adults aged 55 to 65 and those aged 65 and over. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of both age groups from the Baltic Sea Region. Thematic analysis results revealed challenges faced by each group, their expectations from the Digital Silver Hub, the importance of a user-friendly interface, concerns about data privacy and security, and the potential impacts of the platform. The research findings emphasize the importance of adopting a user-centric evaluation when designing the platform. The recommendations generated from this study can guide the development of user-friendly solutions, empowering and enriching the lives of the silver generation in our increasingly digitalized world.

With the increasing population of the silver economy, many potential economic opportunities appear, in particular, in developed countries. Recently, the European Union and the Baltic Sea Region have been very active with their research on active aging and to tackle the challenges arising from the exponentially increasing ageing population. The OSIRIS project is one such EU-funded initiative to develop a digital platform for the elderly named the Digital Silver Hub, which aims to serve as an ecosystem for the quadruple helix actors (private sector, public sector, academic institutions, senior citizens) to participate in knowledge exchange, collaboration and co-creation of innovative technological solutions to facilitate the elderly population. In this paper, 30 interviews were conducted from the partner heads of the OSIRIS project as well as quadruple helix actors from each region in the Baltic Sea Region (Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Lithuania, and Denmark) in order to deeply understand the functionalities that are needed to be offered by the Digital Silver Hub. A deductive thematic analysis is conducted to analyse these functionalities in terms of Collective Intelligence (CI) components (namely staffing, processes, goals and motivation) based on a most recent generic CI model. The functionalities were further evaluated by experts working in the field of science and technology in the silver economy. As results, the needed functionalities are identified and explained in depth. As an outlook, we discuss how these functionalities can be translated into architectural components of a system design.