#398 AARP Innovation Labs Artiphon

AARP Innovation Labs Artiphon

The Not Old Better Show - AARP Business Buildout

Welcome to The Not Old Better Show, I’m Paul Vogelzang and this is episode 398.

Hey everybody… I attended AARP’s annual 2019 Business Pitch Competition, the “Better Together” event at AARP’s Innovation Labs, in Washington, DC. Of course, AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. The pitch event is sponsored by AARP Innovation Labs which engages with startups to transform markets and change lives.

This event features leading-edge startups from across the country. The startups pitch their ideas that will shape the future of how we all age regarding health, wealth and self solutions. The AARP Innovation Labs are committed to engaging the best and the brightest startups to identify challenges and solve big issues that impact us all as we age.

Of course, the Innovation part of the name ‘Innovation Labs” has a long history at AARP. AARP was built on innovation and has always worked toward developing solutions that create opportunities and solve problems for people 55+ in age. It’s part of the DNA at AARP.

Additionally, AARP has long recognized the “longevity economy” — the economic opportunity that America’s older population represents — and AARP has actively encouraged product developers and marketers to respond to this “longevity economy" with solutions focused on the interests and needs of people age 55-plus.

While at the event, I spoke to all the participants, including today’s guest, from Artiphon, who won 2d Prize overall. Let me tell you a bit about Artiphon, which is a cool company, based in Nashville…music capital city. Artiphon lets you play almost any instrument you want in one simple device: the Artiphon. It’s a very cool device. When you see it, it may remind you, as it did me, of the Melodica, from when I was a boy. The difference is that the Artiphon has lots of keys, which allow you to really bring the music and technology together. You actually do play it like a guitar/piano/violin.  As a matter of fact, we’re listening to some of the music now, produced live at the event for us by the Artiphon team. The creators who we’ll be speaking within just a moment, were aiming to reach a wide spectrum of people and those of us over 60 will figure this out, and the web site offers lots of great instructional videos, so when they say the "everyone" instrument, they aren't kidding. Getting into music creation and learning to play an instrument may have been an overwhelming (and expensive) process in the past, but this has changed the game. Now, anyone and everyone interested in music creation can pick up an Artiphon and get their groove on, even if they would never walk into a Guitar Center. 

Please join me in welcoming to The Not Old Better Show, Andy Miller.

Thanks for joining me for our recap of the recent AARP Innovation Labs, “Better Together,” pitch event. Stay tuned for the rest of our series, during which we interview each of the participants. Check each one out, these are some cool new startups, focused on aging.

Thanks, everybody, and remember, let’s Talk About Better. The Not Old Better Show.

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