Annenberg Foundation Chairman and CEO Wallis Annenberg has demonstrated an uncanny ability to identify gaps in community resources and to create new and innovative opportunities through her philanthropic work. With our increasingly aging population coinciding with increasing life expectancy, she envisions a fresh look at longevity and for us to extend our reverence for our elders into actions that can improve the quality their lives in addition to society as a whole.
Wallis shared her unique point of view and introduced the forthcoming Wallis Annenberg GenSpace in a guest column for the Milken Institute’s Power of Ideas series:
So that’s what the Annenberg Foundation is trying to do right now around aging and longevity: turn Los Angeles into a laboratory for reducing the social isolation of the elderly and changing how our culture thinks about aging in the first place.
For starters, we want to show that we can morph the very experience of aging into something far more vibrant and dynamic. So in concert with the Stanford University Center on Longevity, we are creating the Wallis Annenberg GenSpace, which will open in LA’s Koreatown at the end of this year.
The Wallis Annenberg GenSpace is an effort to reimagine what senior life can look like—worlds away from sterile nursing homes and small, dark, and lonely apartments. The Space will be fresh and futuristic and tech-forward, like the brand-new Rem Koolhaas building that will house it.
Read the full column here.
