Bip Pop is a ser­vice-inten­sive plat­form that tar­gets local author­i­ties who wish to widen the scope of their social ser­vices offer to help alle­vi­ate and rem­e­dy iso­la­tion fac­tors. Inter­ac­tions went out to meet some hap­py Bips and Pops! 

Two years ago, Philippe Angrand, a ripe old 84 despite hav­ing to use a walk­ing stick need­ed some help to make him walk a bit more. This for­mer armed forces man called in and just one Bip lat­er, a Pop (a co-opt­ed local vol­un­teer) by the name of Lucile turned up, or should we say ‘popped up’, in a flash? The mis­sion assigned to Bip-Pop is to help strength­en the social con­tact with and for per­sons who grad­u­al­ly lose their auton­o­my. “I’ve been liv­ing in Com­pieg­ne for 47 year now; I have 4 daugh­ters and 4 grand-chil­dren, all of whom have excel­lent jobs. For my day-to-day needs, I have Lucile and also Fab­rice with whom I can get as far as the local “bistro” to enjoy a cof­fee. I think this idea of hav­ing peo­ple meet and help oth­ers is both very astute and very use­ful. Rather than walk alone, which means in the long run not walk­ing at all, now I know I have some­one who can help me beat my lazy incli­na­tions”, says Philippe. “We chat about every­thing that cross­es our minds and I get her to talk to me about her fam­i­ly. Some­times too, she helps me use my com­put­er more effi­cient­ly”. “For the past year, I have been lucky enough to look after Jacques, 93 years old. He loves when I read books out loud for him” Marie-Ange Pautet, a kind and gen­er­ous Pop. 

Social innovation

Cour­tesy vis­its, read­ing out loud ses­sions, help with com­put­ers, deal­ing with ‘admin’ papers, com­pa­ny for walks, shop­ping, attend­ing events and even gen­er­a­tion exchang­ing advice … if I need help, I call Bip Pop and they answer imme­di­ate­ly, which is pos­si­ble via the Inter­net and mobile “apps”. What we have is a trans­po­si­tion to sat­is­fy pure­ly social needs. The aim is to pop­u­lar­ize local help ser­vices. Hence the “Pop” as in “Pop­u­larise”. Anne Gué­nan – lec­tur­er-cum research sci­en­tist at UTCV Costech lab, whose idea it was ini­tial­ly to cre­ate this social and sol­i­dar­i­ty-dri­ven inno­va­tion – explains, “Bip Pop is the result of sev­er­al years’ devel­op­ment of research in a part­ner­ship ven­ture between UTC and the Godin Insti­tute. The Bip Pop plat­form will be being imple­ment­ed through­out the Region Hauts-de–France in 2019–20”.

Proximity & sociability

Bip Pop has the sta­tus of a social and sol­i­dar­i­ty-dri­ven com­pa­ny (of col­lec­tive inter­est). It has part­ner­ships with local author­i­ties, with the var­i­ous MDS, RPA, EHPAD, CAS, CCAS, CSR that all aim at serv­ing the needs of iso­lat­ed per­sons. “What is wor­ry­ing today in France is that we have 1.2 M senior cit­i­zens who are iso­lat­ed and this fig­ure is ris­ing all the time. Thanks to this mech­a­nism where­by we can bring togeth­er peo­ple express­ing a need and ser­vices that offer help, Bip Pop helps these seniors con­tin­ue to stay in at home, with access to what we call the “final mile” and prox­im­i­ty ser­vices”, adds Math­ieu Ribeil, direc­tor for devel­op­ment of Bip Pop. An ESUS cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, for social and sol­i­dar­i­ty-dri­ven com­pa­ny (of col­lec­tive inter­est) is just round the corner! 

https://www.bippop.com/