ENoLL Top 10 of the Year 2010

The year 2010 was an active year for ENoLL, both in terms of operations and in terms of steps forward taken in the establishment of ENoLL legal body.

ENoLL today is the result of a series of ambitious objectives that have been reached and even surpassed, motivating the community and its members and providing a dynamic network and platform for dialogue all living labs globally.

For a number of years, since 2006, these objectives primarily concerned smaller group of members committed to living labs and open user-driven innovation.

The year 2010 was an active year for ENoLL, both in terms of operations and in terms of steps forward taken in the establishment of ENoLL legal body.

ENoLL today is the result of a series of ambitious objectives that have been reached and even surpassed, motivating the community and its members and providing a dynamic network and platform for dialogue all living labs globally.

For a number of years, since 2006, these objectives primarily concerned smaller group of members committed to living labs and open user-driven innovation.

Now ENoLL has become a significant network in Europe; establishing a position also globally, first by Waves of Membership, of which the 5th Wave was launched in Ghent in December 2010, and more recently by opening a dialogue with various different actors for example in China, Taiwan and Brazil. 

Along the way, ENoLL has also enlarged its scope of activities with the support of the newly established ENoLL Office in Brussels.

The highlights of the year 2010 are the following:

1. Workshop on Smart Cities Call (CIP ICT-PSP programme)

In January, a workshop was organised by ENoLL, supported by CO-LLABS, EUROCITIES and APOLLON. Participants were given the opportunity to present and discuss their experience and ideas with a view towards development of Call 4 Pilot B proposals. On basis of this session, four thematic domains emerged as a basis for Pilot B proposals. A joint co-creating session was organized in four parallel working groups to elaborate the potential Pilot B proposals.

All together five proposals were in the end directly facilitated by ENoLL. Finally three of them succeeded in bidding for this highly competitive CIP ICT Policy Support Programme Call, which received over 40 proposals. ENoLL is partner in three of the successful proposals, taking part in the dissemination activities.

2. Living Lab Bar Camp in Valencia and 4^th Wave of Memberships

In April ENoLL organized a Living Lab Bar Camp in Valencia to warm up the new and older livinlabbers. The stage was open for all spontaneous speeches and presentations, and the Camp gave a sneak preview for the contents behind the news given out the next day. ENoLL also announced its fourth wave results.

The official Launch Event of the Fourth wave ENoLL members on April 14th was honoured of the presence of Mr Juan Tomas Hernani, General Secretary of Innovation of Spain and Mr Zoran Stančič, Deputy Director-General, European Commission, DG Information Society and Media.

More information on the event.

3. First Living Lab Summer School

The first European Living Lab Summer School was held in Paris at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie – la Villette on the 25. -27. August 2010. It was initiated by the Ami Community “Learning open innovation and living labs”.

The Summer School was organized by two French living labs (ICT Usage Lab, Integrative Usage Lab) Esocenet and Unbla. It gathered more than 80 participants coming from 24 countries including Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Senegal and Singapore.

Next Living Lab Summer School will be held in August 2011 in Barcelona.

Living Labs Summer School 2010 (AMI community).

Proceedings of the LL Summer School here.

You can see a video recording on the LL Summer School here. 

4. ENoLL Cooperation

In September 2010, ENoLL signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

On the 25th of November ENoLL signed a Memorandum of Understanding on City Administration and Public Service Innovation with Beijing City Administration Information System and Equipment Center (CAISEC) and an agreement of collaboration with the Ubiquitous Network Industry and Technology Development Forum (UNITED).

In very concrete terms, the Living Labs Knowledge Center was launched in December together with Amsterdam Living Lab and Apollon-project. The online knowledge center supports developpers who want to design or evaluate new products or services. It is also a platform for researches to share and discuss their experiences with living lab research.

5 Launch of the 5^th Wave on the Living Labs and Smart Cities day

Future Internet Conference Week 13-17th December in Ghent not only witnessed the awaited launch of the 5th Wave of ENoLL Call for Membership applications, but also featured an inspiring day of Living Labs and Smart Cities Open Innovation for Future Internet, hosted by IBBT.

Among high-level speakers were Mayor of the City of Ghent, Mr. Daniël Termont and Mr. Robert Madelin, Director-General DG Information Society and Media of the European Commission.

In addition, on the 13th December ENoLL Thematic Domain Living Labs and Apollon-project held a joint workshop on the Living Labs cross-border and cross-thematic cooperation, followed by the last ENoLL General Assembly for the year 2010.

More information on the event.

See for the presentations here.

See for pictures here.

Videorecording of the summary discussion from the Thematic Domain Workshop here.

6. ENoLL Project involvement

ENoLL participated as project partner in three 2,5 year projects funded by the European Commission (DG Infso)

SMARTiP project ‘Smart Metropolitan Areas Realized Through Innovation & People’ coordinated by the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) in partnership with Peoples Voice Media and the University of Manchester.

EPIC European Platform for Intelligent Cities will create a pan-European platform for web-based infrastructures and software as service” that enables smart cities to learn from one another and exchange in practical working models in a real life context.

Peripheria (Networked Smart Peripheral Cities for Sustainable Lifestyles) aims to deploy convergent Future Internet platforms and innovative services for the promotion of sustainable lifestyles and workstyles in and across emergent networks of ‘smart’ peripheral cities in Europe. The project develops the Living Lab premise of shifting technology R&D out of the laboratory and into the real world in a systemic blend of technological with social innovation.

Altogether seven pilots on “Open innovation for Internet-enabled services in smart cities” were selected under CIP.

7. GSNN Living Lab Prize

Supported by the FP7 project GAINS (Galileo Advanced Innovation Services), the first GNSS Living Lab Prize was established as part of the European Satellite Navigation Competition 2010, aiming at connecting GNSS related ideas and business opportunities to the real life validation settings offered by Living Labs.

The 2nd stage of the GNSS Living Lab Prize called for interested Living Labs to submit proposals for launching pilots for the three winning ideas. This Open Call for Living Labs will select three Living Labs, who will get the opportunity of hosting a “reality check trial” with one of the winning ideas in their own Living Lab environment, with the involvement of relevant user communities and potential future customers.

On The 7th of December a Match Making of Living Lab and SMEs took place in Rome in the framework of the ESoCE Net Industry Forum User Driven Open Innovation For SMEs In Advanced Service-product development. SMEs holding a Business idea have chair dedicated Multi-stakeholder Tables to identify practical steps forward for the launch of joint initiatives and to discuss and negotiate terms and conditions for conducting reality checks trials with the ENoLL Living Labs.

More information on the event.

Call documentation here.

8. Connected Smart Cities Network

In November some 200 professionals from across Europe gathered in Helsinki, Finland, for the Connected Smart Cities Conference, a convening of practitioners, academics and both public and private sector representatives committed to advancing the Smart City development.

The conference was organized jointly by the City of Helsinki together with the EU-funded FIREBALL –project, Forum Virium Helsinki, Culminatum Innovation, Aalto University and European Network of Living Labs. The afternoon event was moderated by the ENoLL Vice President Jarmo Eskelinen (FVH) including interventions from Alvaro Oliveira (ENoLL President), Pieter Ballon (ENoLL Secretariat), Petra Turkama (Aalto University, Apollon-project).

During the day, the blend of those interested in future internet, user-driven innovation (i.e living labs) in city context– a growing cadre — enjoyed the opportunity of meeting and learning from each other; discussing and clarifying common goals and different experiences; hoping to shape concrete strategies for Smart City advancement.

The day witnessed the launch of the Connected Smart Cities Network of the core cities of Fireball, namely Amsterdam, Manchester, Lisbon, Barcelona and Helsinki, will continue to work closely with EUROCITIES network and European Network of Living Labs, exchanging best practices and hoping to find new ways forward to boost and sustain the capacity for open innovation, co-production and sustainability to future internet enable services in cities across Europe.

The Connected Smart Cities event portal.

See the presentations here.

More information on FIREBALL-project here.

Helsinki Showcase video on VImeo.

9. ENoLL Strategic cooperation with China

ENoLL President Álvaro de Oliveira was one of the key speakers at the Helsinki Region Innovation Days, held on 13-14 October 2010 at the Finnish pavilion during the Shanghai World Expo devoted to “Better City, Better Life”. The themes included user-driven innovation and co-operation between European and Finnish partners and China.

During the Forum Virium Helsinki organized session, ENoLL President gave a presentation on “The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) – from Policy to Methodology”. After presenting ENoLL evolution as a pillar of the European Innovation System he illustrated the Living Labs international collaboration with the case of the Brazilian Network of Living Labs, which raised enormous interest among the Chinese participants and created the opportunity to strengthen the innovation cooperation with China.

Furthermore, in November, ENoLL President was invited back to Beijing for developing ENoLL – Chinese strategic relationship in areas such as Urban Living Labs, Smart City services, IoT, and where he met with Vice President of Beijing Academy of Science and Technology (BJAST), the largest local scientific research institute in China, directly belonging to Beijing Municipality and a meeting with MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology in China) including BMSTC (Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Committee). Oliveira also gave a speech at the Global Internet of Things Conference 2010 on the importance of user-driven innovation in smart city environments.

More information on the Global Internet of Things Conference 2010 here.

10. New ENoLL Communication tools and services

During 2010 ENoLL was further improving information access and communications, including a whole new house style (new logos) and the drafting of ENoLL Communication Strategy.

ENoLL Portal, was launched in April 2010, with new member profiles, continuously updated news section, including all the basic information on the network. Portal has a dedicated members section featuring repository of official ENoLL documents, funding information and member events.

ENoLL Newsletter, during the year 2010, 8 monthly newsletters been launched, featuring highlights, members news, and upcoming events calendar. Currently ENoLL has over 700 newsletters subscribers.

ENoLL growing presence in Social Media, on the newly launched twitter account ENoLL has well over 300 followers, and regular tweets have been launched weekly. ENoLL Slideshare has been popular, with growing amount of views and downloads. ENoLL Scribd account has also been activated recently. ENoLL has also published pictures of all the recent events on Flickr.

Including this, ENoLL Vimeo account has been established with the first video of the summary of the ENoLL Apollon Thematic Domain workshop in Ghent).

ENoLL Activity Report 2010

ENoLL Secretariat is pleased to publish the European Network of Living Labs Activity Report 2010. Discover ENoLL activities during a very intensive and dynamic year for the network.A special message from ENoLL President Alvaro de Olivara, endorsment quotes from our members as well as sections from each ENoLL Work Groups, will guide you through our major initiatives and successes of the year 2010.

Enjoy our reading!