GladAge is an ecosystem for elderly people with the best options for personalised care and fully vetted care homes to choose from

Sunny Kapoor recognised his entrepreneurial spirits back in 1999 when he built a company from scratch in the aged-care space in the UK, called Heath Lodge Care Services. His 20 years of experience has gained him immense knowledge of the care-giving industry and the key challenges it faced, which include lack of senior care homes, missing support system, acute shortage of trained staff, and an unorganised market structure.

With the senior population projected to cross the 2-billion mark in 2050 and the world not becoming a better place for seniors, Kapoor wishes to do something for this population across the globe by leveraging cutting-edge technologies. His plan is to build a online platform that has everything a senior could ask for, so that the trouble of juggling platforms, products, records and services can be avoided for the best.

And this quest drove Kapoor to start GladAge.

“The oldage care system today is flawed. It is unorganised and not funded properly. Gladage identifies the shortcomings of the current system and creates a unified solution to implement with the help of blockchain technology. It tackles all the existing and future challenges to ensure better care and quality for the elderly population while eliminating unnecessary third parties and costs,” claims Kapoor.

The idea of GladAge took shape in June 2017. After successful market research and product ideation, the project kickstarted based on a bootstrap model in November 2017.

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“GladAge is an ecosystem for elderly people with the best options for personalised care and fully vetted care homes to choose from. The platform provides the elderly with the option to choose the care they require depending on their needs, and be able to shop for equipment or services they require to stay independent in either a leased or owned building of GladAge property,” he tells e27.

From the very beginning, Kapoor was particular that he did not want to work for the traditional industry. In his own words, it is not about reinventing the wheel but about introducing technology to the existing processes and systems — and reinvention is just a by-product. As blockchain began disrupting various sectors, Kapoor explored and recognised its potential.

“It thrives to fulfil the vision of designing decentralised senior care equipped to evolve dynamically. Introduction of the most futuristic and disruptive technology in a century-old industry breathes life into it,” he shares. “With blockchain, we can hope for a platform that offers everything a senior might want, by bringing together real estate, healthcare, care providers and senior care equipment all at one place.”

Blockchain, as he suggest, makes the care-giving services more efficient as data (reviews, financial transactions, health records, user profiles, caretaker profiles, tasks, value credits) can be stored in one place with no concern for safety and privacy. Further, the processes become transparent and, in the process, introduce a layer of trust for everyone involved — seniors, their families, doctors, care providers, service providers and real estate owners.

“You know how they say in medicine that a problem is better treated at the root rather than by treatments that mask the symptoms? Blockchain targets the causes of the problems, rather than focus on them in isolation. Apart from immutable storage of data, it also brings features like better capacity, improved efficiency and decentralisation on board. With all this and more, it will form the backbone of our platform. The technology is empowering the senior care sector,” he elucidates.

The GladAge has built a community of different stakeholders, including the senior population and their families, as well as the service and product providers.

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“We have partnerships with like-minded organisations to leverage their operational experience and are working in tandem with the governments to facilitate distribution and utilisation of grants and aids. We also engage with corporations under CSR schemes for donations,” he adds. “We also offer an online leasing marketplace to connect the lessor and the foundation. Additionally, we have a service trading platform to generate economic opportunities.”

Currently, GladAge has partnership with a couple of real estate organisations, and is already in talks with various governments and corporates to garner grants and CSR funds, respectively. This is to ensure that all services are available to people at the bottom of the pyramid. Two of its partners are Blockchain Centre & Melbourne-based RMIT University.

Although the startup was incorporated in Australia and is headquartered in London, Kapoor’s vision is not limited to one geography, but envelopes the global senior population.

“As the project is launched in various economies in a phased manner, seniors, family members, service providers, real estate owners and product companies will all be introduced to the platform. Product and service providers across all fields will first be needed to undergo screening and profiling. Once this is in place, a senior (or family member) will be able to look for a senior home nearby, hire a caregiver on demand and review their performance, and buy any care equipment on the GladAge platform. All transactions will be made with the GladAge token GAC,” he elaborates.

Kapoor claims that every care home built by GladAge creates real demand for the coin as they are required by the elderlies in that locality. Because each home will accommodate new people that need to have GAC in order to stay and pay for services they receive, the demand and value of the coins will increase.

“The senior population is rising by the day, and so is the dependency ratio. The need for senior homes and services will keep soaring up as predicted, and thus, the demand for GAC token will soar as well. However, its supply will remain fixed. In such a situation the value of our token can be expected to appreciate for good,” according to Kapoor.

The year 2018 will aggressively be devoted to token sale, listing across exchanges, community building, platform development and launch of the beta version, says he.

“Our project is currently in the ICO stage, and once the platform is ready by January 2019, the enrolment of healthcare providers and caregivers after screening and profiling will begin for different geographies. The business model thrives on the utility of GAG. As more people come on board and transactions rise, the limited supply of GAC will keep pushing its value upward,” Kapoor explains.

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The token presale will end on June 30, 2018, and crowdsale will begin there on. The soft cap target of US$2 million has already been met, and the total hard cap target is US$20 million.

After crowdsale gets completed, the GAC token will be actively listed across exchanges. After that, the focus will be on product development, the rollout of beta version and launch of the project in Korea, Japan, UK and Australia respectively.

GladAge is currently working on a project in South Korea. The project will be launched by February next year, followed by Japan by October 2019. “After the successful completion in these regions, we plan to scale to other geographies,” he concludes.

Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

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