This is an exploratory PhD project structured around the development of a Community of Practice (CoP) using Participative Action Research (PAR). The platform for this, over two PAR cycles, is the collaborative development of an innovative ‘mentor the mentor’ model by RMIT researchers and members of the University of the Third Age (U3A) in Victoria. Participants in the emerging Digital Mentors Group, itself drawn from preliminary ‘digital literacy’ collaborations, are collectively developing virtual learning mentors – avatars – which engage Large Language Models. We are exploring the way that human/non-human relationships emerging from this work enable or enhance peer mentoring not only in digital technology but across healthspans and in relation to the life values of ageing in place.

The project assumes a position of eldering-as-advantage, bringing focus to the period of later life as a time of flourishing and growth, as distinct from decline and deficit, encapsulated in what we talk about when we talk about ‘wisdom’. The project performatively demonstrates the superpowers of people ageing in place, in an effort to counter ageism and reframe the social (and perhaps economic) value of elderhood. Such capabilities include capacity to host, identifying connectors, and editing the narrative. Peer mentoring skills, social-cultural knowledges and positive affective qualities are engaged as elements of a flourishing elderhood, assisted by customised learning machines designed to grow and add value as ‘study buddies’ and also, holistically, as life companions.