Living Labs Global

Introduction by Prof. Jan Annerstedt, Living Labs Global / Interlace Invent

In the mobile & wireless industry, Europe sits on a very large source of technology, with huge potential. Thus, we need a release of this resource, involving both macro and micro economics aspect, including citizens, business and travellers.

 

The mClusters project, sponsored by Europe INNOVA, is tasked with connecting the European innovation environments, within mobile & wireless services and solutions.

One of the main questions is whether we can actually shape innovation environments, and whether Europe is open enough to do this? The mClusters projects have so far looked at and benchmarked 21 European cities, on both hard & soft factors, to understand this dynamic, and one of the outcomes of the project is to support European cities in these endeavours to promote new models for innovation environments fostering user-driven innovation in the mobile & wireless areas, as well as to create a leading network of cities for mobile innovation.

Some of the conclusions so far: A city such as Tallinn, can be very effective in achieving excellence in new business ventures within the mobile & wireless industry, and use the networks of European innovation cities, to export the innovative solutions to other areas of Europe. Thus, the open innovation environments, or ‘Living Labs’ can help foster excellence in the innovation and commercialisation of mobile & wireless solutions, and as such work as a platform for attracting capital and talent to a region, as a mode of collaboration, and to involve users in the design and development processes. Hence, the Living Lab becomes a city-based innovation resource taking advantage of regional pools of creative talent, the affluence of cultural diversity, and unique regional resources.

One of the questions from the audience was how do you become a Living Lab? One of answers is that the driving force behind a living lab is the drive of business and users, to actively strive for pioneering mobile & wireless services and solutions in the context of a city-area, with the participation of universities, public administration, firms, users and citizens, and actively create links between the user groups. Thus, becoming a living lab is as much a question about management capacity and drive, as about set methodologies.

Jens Bley, Director Living Labs Germany, Partner Content Bridge AG

Living Labs Germany today is a network organisation, focusing on ICT and mobile & wireless services. In Hamburg, these activities have been pioneered by close collaboration with the industrial organisation of ICT companies, with the main focus on content and content-based services.

The two pioneering projects out of Hamburg, but with nationwide impact are Mobile Marketing in Urban Spaces and mTourism.

In the Mobile Marketing in Urban Spaces the urban commercial communication space is combined with mobile & wireless services. Consequently, the city has been broken into local entities, to develop the relationships with local stakeholders and thus provide a platform for developing city-wide services based on local engagement and business models. Public media provides navigation, communication and several other services, which can be enhanced by the mobile phone in the urban and mobile space.

One of the main focus areas is the urban furniture in Hamburg, in which outdoor advertising contracts in Hamburg have been tendered out, with the purpose of leveraging the multimedia aspects of the city. Although the main part of the business on urban furniture is done via traditional advertising, the future will be based on mobile and interactive services, which suddenly introduce new players to the market.

The public medium raises awareness, and the mobile phone raises the recall rate. Consequently, the business models are not new, but a known currency in the media and marketing world is being employed in a new business area. Hence, a variety of pioneering application are being developed in areas such as storefinder, live casting, event offerings, discount-coupons, public information, live voting, and interactive quizzing. For the consumers, the drivers are navigation, entertainment and smart shopping, for the marketers this is about traditional business drivers such as marketing, drivers of communication and awareness.

In the mTourism area, Living Labs Germany is taking advantages of the links to Living Labs Stockholm, signing an agreement to prototype the mobile tourism solutions developed and in use in Stockholm, in the cities and tourism destinations in Germany. This is combined with new initiatives such as Sehnsucht Deutschland or ‘Longing for Germany’, developing the emphasis on tourism initiatives in Germany in new and cross-media areas, e.g. print, online, mobile and television.

 

Bruno Naulais, General Manager of the European Space Incubator, European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) promotesthe idea that satellite technologies should enable end-user driven mobile and wireless solutions. What is important here is that based on the satellite data, new products, services and scientific results can be developed. Services, such as the Galileo project, are developing new technologies within navigation, position and communication with new features regarding accuracy, resolution and bandwidth. Consequently, the satellite systems are becoming increasingly involved in the communication industry linked to both US and other initiatives in space as well as terrestrial areas.

On of the main themes of ESA is the technology transfer and business incubation in the space area. Some main themes are low weight, strength and durability, efficiency and reliability, compactness, temperature, radiation and corrosion resistance for the technologies developed for e.g. space deployment. There considerations require highly specialised services and facilities, which ESA can provide in the incubators in Noordwijk, Darmstadt and Franscati.

Areas in which space technology have been used are for example composite materials for artificial limbs for the Paralympics, anti-vibration devices for skiers, ozonisers for e.g sterilisation of dentist equipment Other equipment are passive radiometers, to find water and soil moisture around e.g. dykes and dams to prevent flooding.

In the mobile area several solutions have also been developed. The company MarineNet has developed a technology for using GSM onboard e.g. cruise ships, by setting up a mini-GSM antenna, using satellite links to links to the global mobile networks. Mobiria is developing services for connecting retail, tourism services to consumers via a GNSS chip. The company Posirid is developing positioning systems using impulse radio improving positioning also inside buildings and other places not directly in contact with antennas. The company Sport Track develops visualisation of sports on the internet on mobile devices and displays. Some applications are in the boat racing industry, Tour de France and other sport events. The company Disaps creates applications for blind people to navigate in the city using satellite signals combined with WiFi, with one pilot project is running in wireless Leiden. The company Sat Sport is developing a tool for sports, where you can see your result during training using onboard telemetry, which can be compared with training patterns, form measurements and other methodologies.

ESA currently operates several initiatives to assist companies in areas such as technology transfer, technology brokering through MST Aerospace GmbH, and national technology transfer initiatives (NTTI) Business incubation, ESTEC, ESTIC and ESRIN in Netherlands, Italy and Germany, and the ESINET, which is the incubator network. In the incubators, ESA is currently making EUR 40-50M available in early stage financing. Also, ESA is involved in the Galileo Masters competition for business plans in the satellite and space area, to be kicked at the end of April, in Sophia-Antipolis.
 

Panel Debate

Laurent Londeix, Laboratory Director “Data services & M2M solutions”, France Telecom R&D

France telecom today employs 6000 employees in the region of C^te d’Azur, and is supporting a number of mobile & wireless projects, such as mTourism with satellite technology, GSM and other mobile & wireless technologies. 20 years ago, France Telecom thought that they could invent everything themselves, but today the company has increasingly understood the value of collaborative research. Hence France Telecom is today an active member of the 65 French clusters of excellence, and the chair in the secure communication clusters, and active in e.g. RFID and quality of communication.

Today, France Telecom is also involving SMEs to develop new technologies, and many new activities are focused on user-driven innovation, both in involving users in the innovation processes, and also to be sensitive to user requirements in the areas of services and applications.

Liisa Kanniainen, Executive Director, Mobey Forum

The common focus in mobile services is the consumer, as this is the person that has the mobile device, and will use the services. But what is the enabler or the enabling factor? In Mobile Forum, the focus is on payment, as users want to be able to pay wherever and whatever they want. Hence, the enabler is the possibility of payment, and securing the ability to pay, the necessary systems, security and integrations.

Frank Meinzer, Head of Operations, Telecom Valley

Telecom Valley is an organisation to develop collaboration between companies in the mobile & wireless industry in Sophia-Antipolis. The critical path for the future is to identify end-user solutions and to help the individual customer to get easier access to specific needs. No company can stand alone, and here also the European networks come in, as the role of the European networks is to create collaboration and to secure market access.

Jean-Bernard Titz, Programme Manager Pôle SCS

The developers are also important in the mobile & wireless context, and securing collaboration between developing companies. Some of the main markets in Sophia-Antipolis are tourism, health, and logistics. But we also want the business-side to be emphasised, as innovation is also about commercialisation. Hence, we have created thematic groups between universities, firms, researchers and users to discuss mobility and wireless. One of the main points is actually speaking with the users, for example tourism offices, about what they want to help them.

Philippe Moretto, Project Director, Team Côte d’Azur

Team Côte d’Azur was founded 22 years ago, and focuses on inward investments. The success of Sophia-Antipolis has been applications and technologies, and today the cities are becoming the focus for marketing of the region’s competences. For the region, some of the big challenges are to promote the clusters, and integrate these with the Pôle de Competitivé. The next challenges are be also to involve the satellite development, as well as other technologies such as GSM, in new application areas such as global monitoring, navigation and positioning. It will be interesting to see the new application areas such as timing and communication. Thus, our role will be to work together with the companies and associations in the region, to further enhance the region and to maintain the position amount the ten best regions in Europe. To develop this position, there must be a combination of public and private institutions.

One of the questions from the audience was whether there are mechanisms to source and support entrepreneurs. The region has among other resources, thematic groups to identify and develop technology needs, including tools such as a knowledge management platform.

Pihlippe Moretto responded that there are many new start-ups, and new competences, and hence the region is trying to facilitate meetings for entrepreneurs and the many young start-ups, to interlink investors and business angels. The more the exchanges can be facilitated, the better is the support the start-ups.

Karl-Frank Meinzer added that one of the contributions of the Living Labs is to involve the user, and to identify user needs, by connecting the firms and user-communities, in for example using lead-users or innovative users to become part of the firms’ innovation processes in order to open up to new paths for innovation by different incentive systems. Consequently, we should look at how user communities are interlinked with the firm.

Another question from the audience was when mobile tourism applications would be available in e.g. Nice or Cannes on the ordinary mobile phone.

Laurent Londeix answered that new support structures would have to be in place such as payment structures, but the status and timing of this had not been established now. mTourism is a hot topic right now in the region, and there are no technological barriers per se. One option could be NFC, and e.g. Nice airport is very keen to look at new technologies, and would be one of the first airports to use this technology. However, one of the challenges is how these services can be offered across firm standards, roaming, and identification. On top of the technology issues there are still legal, business and other dimensions which must be developed, but perhaps within 5 years this would be available.

Liisa Kanniainen added that it is not only the technological enables, but also how the business models will be on the phones. This is one of the main challenges in Mobile Forum, and this defines how fast one can go to the market. However, there seems to be common drive for the idea.

Bruno Naulais added that in the region, many technologies have been developed, but the region has been technology-driven and not user-driven, and therefore no one has the overview of which solutions have been developed where. For the EGNOS for example, the first tests have been made in the airport and are meant to spread into the market of e.g. the cities in the region.

Liisa Kanniainen concluded that as the technology and R&D is there, and the business case is being developed, it could perhaps been in even 3 years. As the name mTourism was pioneered in Sophia-Antipolis, there is a focus on this area.

A question from VTT in Finland, is whether in the future the use devices will be easier or more complex? And what kind of medicines will you have?

Jean-Bernard Titz responded that the technology has become more complex, so one of the challenges are to develop technologies that simplify the life of the user. The city of Tokyo has made a smart card solution for queuing in public transportation, so there is no more queuing. So, more application are on a convenience level, that the user chooses which technologies there want. E.g. there is an abundance of technologies, and the choice is with the users.

There is clearly a challenge for equipment manufacturers to hiding the complexity to the users, especially as we are going towards convergence, there is a strong value in addressing complexity. The whole idea of NFC is also to make it simple, but the level of abstraction is also higher for users. E.g. going from coins to mobile technology, will take time and adjustment for the users.

Living Labs Forum 2006 brought together Living Lab leaders from 12 European cities, as well as business executives, methodology experts and policy makers. Held in Barcelona, the event covered experiences, emerging projects, results and opportunities and lead to a rich exchange between those that are bringing new advanced mobility services to Europes citizens, businesses and visitors.

After three-and-a-half days of extensive presentations, discussions exchanges and intensive networking, the Living Labs Europe Forum 2006 came to a close on Wednesday in Barcelona.

 

Our days in Barcelona, supported by the mClusters community and our local Living Labs Catalunya partners, was attended by leaders of more than 12 Living Labs and mClusters – representing local / regional and trans-national public agencies, leading universities, small- and medium-sized companies and multi-national corporations. Co-located with the Internet Global Congress , the event was held in an entrepreneurial context with more than 3.000 ICT professionals and their show-cases around us.

A broad spectrum of issues was reviewed, with experts or leaders in each field facilitating the discussion. Professor Jan Annerstedt of Living Labs Europe kicked off the sessions with giving the stage to the European dimension of Living Labs.

Angelos Ktenas and Marika Kaliff reviewed the current state and considerations of European policy on Living Labs, introducing their departmental and directorate (DG Information Society and Media) objectives. Reflecting on the key policy and funding frameworks provided via i2010 and CIP (Competitiveness Innovation Programme) progress on development of eWork Living Labs was reported. Marika Kaliff outlined the work on the initial work done today in the definition of Living Labs concepts and how these can integrate into EU policy frameworks.

Pelle Ehn, Professor at K3, the School of Arts and Communication at Malmo University and internationally recognised expert on participatory innovation and design followed the EU policy perspective by placing Living Labs into a historical context reaching into the early and mid 20^th century and placing Living Labs into a line of models and experiments in linking technology and solution design methods. Prof Ehn outlined both the limitations faced by traditional participatory design as well as the emerging instruments that can be used as components in advanced Living Labs – including the ecologies of artefacts that conceive technology development of an appropriation and integration of habitual environments. Drawing our attention to design not as a limited stage, but also an activity that can span into the post-design stages of training, appropriation and socialising efforts Professor Ehn also pointed at the significant disciplinary implications on design as a more holistic process reaching beyond the conception and production stages.

A key concern was raised by the floor, focusing in particular in the motivational challenges in Living Labs – an issue later reflected also during the methodology workshop run by Prof Ehn. Living Labs leaders often face barriers of motivation or prioritisation to bring about cross-sectoral or just inter-departmental change. Motivating limited user groups in a hospital or similar environment may be only one component of mobilising a broader stakeholder community into participatory design.

Herein, according to Ehn, lies both a great challenge and opportunity. Mass participation, in which more than 2000 users can take part are possible and practiced most widely in the practice of architecture and urbanism. Defining the territory of engagement and scaling-up methodologies may be a new field of opportunity due to the territorial make-up and anchoring of Living Labs to particularities of ‘place’.

Angelos Ktenas reflected also on the EU Policy side, which offers the programmatic frameworks to address motivational issues, yet offer no instruments or special attentions at this stage to this aspect of Living Labs operations. It appears to emerge that reporting the experiences gathered in the Living Labs Europe community may be a particularly important contribution to support the ‘triggering of engagement’ (Annerstedt) that could be fed into the FP7 Living Labs framework. These conceptual and policy framework discussions were followed by the entrepreneur’s perspective on Living Labs.

Anders Halldin, CEO of Woize International (a VoIP operator) outlined his company’s strategy in utilising Living Labs Europe as an instrument to innovate in direct collaboration with end-user communities across Europe. Living Labs, according to Halldin, continue to add significant elements of differentiation to Woize’s business development and solution portfolio, which is integrated into municipal messaging platforms, provides free telephony, SMS / wireless commercial transactions and brandspace to local and international networks. Woize already collaborates with Living Labs in Sweden, Germany and Catalunya via Living Labs Europe to go beyond test-bed functionality by proactively shaping user-demand. Like all other speakers on the panel, it was made clear that test-beds are only a component of a Living Lab – with the broader challenge lying in the organisational and leadership implications.

Leadership, unsurprisingly, featured as a key success factor in the exchange of experiences from Living Labs that was presented by representatives from Vaestervik, Kalmar region in Sweden, and in Hamburg.

Hakan Brynielsson, Managing Director of the Kalmar County launched the second session with an introduction into the digital society development in Kalmar. Already in the mid-late nineties plans were developed to implement a regional roll-out of broadband services going in conjunction with dramatic reorganisations in the public sector. A significant enabler for the successful (mainly infrastructural) investments in Kalmar was a leadership ability to consolidate fragmented investment funds for 12 municipalities in the region to establish and implement a regional strategy.

Picking up on the regional framework, Harald Hjalmarsson, Mayor of Vaestervik (37.000 inhabitants) placed this development into a context of the municipal trauma when Electrolux transferred 1.000 jobs from Vaestervik to Hungary.

Instead of striking or fighting the inevitable, public leaders took a bold decision to address the future head-on. Setting in motion the Living Lab Vaestervik not only advanced technologies but conepts for rationalising and rethinking public administration has made Vaestervik an international reference for mobile solution development. mTourism, mStudent, mCitizen are the priority areas in which advanced concepts have become realities. Over the past year, leaders from other Living Labs have visited Vaestervik and international collaborations have been triggered by Living Labs Europe.

Following this local success story of a small community (which included also representation by the winners of the mStudent contest and the headmaster), the City of Hamburg and its stakeholders presented a spectacular view of its Living Lab. Jens Bley (Living Labs Germany) presented the ‘Mobile Marketing in Urban Spaces’ concept, which draws on a synthesis of traditional and mobile media and marketing channels into a holistic urban information space. Combining research findings by Simon Blake from Berlin and extensive media experience in Hamburg, this concept is a concept for Europe with already key stakeholders aligned from the business and public sector community in Hamburg. Exploitation of holistic licensing fees can effectively quadruple licensing revenues for the City of Hamburg in tendering an interactive outdoors advertising and urban furniture package in 2008 – a triggering event in what is anticipated to be a European roll-out.

Whilst presented as a sound business proposition, the concept addresses also important informational and navigational needs by citizens and the objectives of municipalities to promote mGovernance services. The project drives a network of partners in Hamburg as well as a European consortium of Living Labs partners in Catalunya, Sweden and Budapest seeking to commence Market Validation in the coming months.

Uwe-Jens Neumann, Managing Director of Hamburg’s Economic Promotion Agency, provided the municipal perspective and leadership strategy behind the Hamburg Living Lab. Anchored within the professional network http://www.hamburg-media.net/ (2300 members), established already for 10 years, with experiences in being the first European municipality to roll out sponsored WiFi coverage in the city-centre. As a Living Lab, Hamburg will draw on these unique infrastructures and the expertise inherent in Germany’s leading hub for media businesses. Complementing the mobile marketing (and related) projects, networking events (“Living Labs Lounge”) provide the social environment in which ideas, collaboration opportunities and inspirations are exchanged.

In the questions raised to the panel, important issues relating to the various forms of Public-Private-Partnerships in Living Labs were raised to the representatives from Vaestervik, Kalmar and Hamburg. The separation between commercial and public interest remains a challenge, as the innovations intended require close collaboration and forward-looking co-investment. If these were to be followed by extensive tendering procedures it would disrupt the private sector willingness to invest – yet it is also the public interest that calls for transparent decision making in such processes. Harald Bynielsson confirmed this concern – as a day-to-day challenge without simple recipes.

Yet, it was a comment by Mr Hjalmarsson that set clear the ambition by the Mayor of Vaestervik as challenging preconceptions on municipal services. H e expressed his goal to bring a large percentage of tax-payers money onto their mobile device to give them greater freedom in selecting public services.

A round-table facilitated by Pelle Ehn addressed Living Labs Methodology in response to the cases and experienced expressed. Whilst test-beds presume a service to exist, a Living Lab project shapes demand in close collaboration with the end-user. Ideally this is followed by a strong user-participation in the design process – an aspect that he felt was yet to be fully achieved in the experiences to date.

In Vaestervik and Hamburg, the involvement of end-users in the design could generate unforeseen results that should also draw on ethnographies – to follow, ask and search in a non-linear process. Electrolux has made significant recoveries when it began to integrate social probing, prototyping and user participation into a new design process. Tobi Schneidler, of M.A.O. Works (London) introduced the promising practice (and now industry) of experience modelling – as a service design industry – of which components could be used to enrich Living Labs processes. Experiences from

Living Lab Sant Cugat confirmed the prototyping methods, where simple technologies (SMS) were deployed – yet it was the internal operational structures that continued to prove most challenging.

Pelle Ehn outlined a significant methodological advancement that Living Labs could contribute to participatory design. Living Labs establish longer-term communities of collaboration that last beyond the projects. If this is to be achieved, community building ought to be integrated into the process of establishing Living Labs – as has been done in various regions. This in combination with larger scale user participation (2000+) could lead to new forms of design, unpredictable results and a truly unique Living Labs offering.

Sascha Haselmayer, of Living Labs Europe and Coordinator of Living Labs Catalunya introduced the progress made in Catalunya - including the implementation of the branding efforts through prioritised project lines. International networks have been launched to structure collaborative projects along the lines of mStudent, mTourism, mVisitor, and mMarketing connecting companies, public agencies and research groups with their international counterparts.

Christer Asplund, of Living Labs Europe, hosted the sessions on reporting the results of the mWatch Europe studies findings on Mobile Readiness in Europe. 25 Cities were reviewed, leading to a number of rankings according to the Mobile Readiness Index.

Complementing the index, a review of Kaleidoscope cases for the most innovative projects and regional conditions took place, with presentations from 11 European regions. Overall, findings of more than 80 innovative mobile projects were presented in a round-table atmosphere triggering an exchange of experiences, opportunities and even investor interest.

Tuesday kicked-off with a spectacular presentation on ‘Mobile Marketing in Urban Spaces’ by Simon Blake and Jens Bley (Living Labs Germany). Covering the detailed concept (including demonstrations and prototypes) the presentation triggered a lively discussion of limitations and opportunities in Europe. A key factor, in some regions, may be the regulation of public vs private contents – yet overall the added-value of a European vision for such a concept was recognised. In particular, its convergence of various existing components already operational in various Living Labs – integrating also free telephony and Bluetooth services – helped to bring the level of technical feasibility to trigger discussions about market validation.

 

A roundtable on mTourism chaired by Christer Asplund reviewed the current initiatives in the regions present, plus an international comparison with offerings in Asia and the United States. Whilst many services are already available in Estonia, these do not sufficiently seem to integrate with traditional (including outdoor-advertising) media to build awareness. Tourists / Visitors are not informed about the great variety of services, including the ringing of church-bells via SMS in Tarttu. Arturo Ortega, of the Barcelona Living Lab ( Fundacion Barcelona Digital) showed confidence in achieving the objectives established in the Brand Manual for Living Labs Catalunya in relation to the 2007 3GSM World Congress which should serve as a showcase for new content and visitor services in Catalunya. In addition, a pilot of the new 7010 mobile service for citizens (including city agenda, map, information) was presented that could act as a platform for further Living Lab services.

A particular highlight was the discussion of food clusters in various European regions to develop food related solutions. Interest from Sweden, Piedmonte, Catalunya, Oresund, Budapest, and Portugal was particularly strong to link unique traditions, expertise, logistics and products with advanced mobile services – such as recipes on demand, tour guides and others. A Food Living Lab is in the making in Grythyttan, with an international Living Lab event planned in October 2006 that could trigger European networking. Furthermore, linkages can actively be built with the Food networks in INNOVA and InvestorNet Food Group.In all, the roundtables and sessions produced an extensive overview in 3 days – which is only covered in small fragments in this article.