Happy Denmark invests US$ 540 million in Welfare Robots

http://www.visitdenmark.com

In Denmark, ranked the happiest population in the world, where citizens are paying some of the highest taxes in the world, the Danish government spends more on the welfare of children and elderly than any other government. As part of the Quality Reform, launched in 2008, Denmark invests appr. 540 million dollar (400 million Euro) in labor saving technologies such as ICT, cleaning, feeding and social robots in the public sector 2009-2015. Robots are needed to provide more elderly citizens with better and more effective public services and to compensate future recruiting challenges. 25 % of the public sector employees will retire within the next 10 years. As part of the annual economic agreement the Government and Local Government Denmark (KL) decided that the municipalities must account for setting free resources corresponding to 130 million Euro (increasing to 700 million Euro in 2013).

More Service Robots for Better Public Service Provision

The Danish strategy aims at making the public sector more effective and spend more money on service provision by spending less money on administration, purchasing and energy, reducing absence due to illness and using more labor saving technologies and better work procedures. Labor saving technologies can set free resources to more care for e.g. the elderly. Public employees can with the same work intensity provide more service to the citizens by using better and more advanced tools and aids, having excellent work flow systems and case management systems and organizing the work procedures better.

See also:
Denmark invests € 4,5 Million in Therapeutic Robots from Japan
Danish Centre for Robot Technology expands
Denmark first with Social Robot Drivers License
First Danish Geminoid