Respect for the elderly knows no bounds.
"It's so easy to look at people and prejudge them and to think, 'I just see an old person.’ I don't see the child, as she was growing up, or the teenager or the woman who got married or the man who got the job promotion or traveled overseas,” says Jo Schneier, CEO at Cognotion.
In front of us are people whose lives have been beautifully lived, says Jo, whose work focusses on developing digital education programs to train caregivers for aging populations. Based in New York, Cognotion offers interactive learning platforms for a range of jobs, including nurses and home health aides. In this interview, recorded at the recent TED MED conference in La Quinta, California, Jo explains the philosophy behind a learning technique that combines cognition and emotion; how the company searches out society’s “untapped potential” to work with a “demanding” population; and why he lifts weights, in mid-life, to nurture his own longevity.