ENoLL adherent member Digital Spaces Living Lab (DSLL) organised an Living Lab event in Sofia (Bulgaria) on Mobile Apps for Use in the City on January 26th-27th, 2013.

The objective of the event was to showcase and analyse the variety of innovative mobile apps for urban use which have been developed in recent years in South Eastern Europe and beyond. Between 15 and 20 mobile apps were presented during the event. Such apps change the way people perform various activities in our daily lives in the city. Participants in the workshop were expected to install and try some of the apps prior to the living lab event in Sofia.

During the two-day event demos and discussions were organised in several thematic sessions in order to  analyse how useful mobile apps are in smart cities and how some of these services can be improved in the future. The four sessions focused on the following topics:
 

•  smart cities
• smart transportation
• smart events and lifestyle
• smart media and entertainment

Find out more here.

Digital spaces are digital, virtual or computer-generated worlds, but also the spaces we live in, where we use digital media, digital communication devices, digital gadgets, etc.

The Digital Spaces Living Lab (DSLL) was founded in 2008 in Sofia, Bulgaria, to support industrial and academic partners working in the field of new digital media technologies, location-based services (LBS), and smart city services and apps. DSLL provides a creative environment for research and innovation, as well as new forms of direct user involvement in the innovation process. It aims to establish links between business enterprises, media partners, academia and citizens to  ensure the successful collaboration between all these parties.

The main objectives of the Digital Spaces Living Lab in Sofia are:

• to help IT, media and communications companies to  test new technologies and products in very early stages of their development and with real users
• via the DSLL Technology Incubator to support new ideas and start-up companies in the digital media, LBS and smart city sectors
• to give start-up companies in the digital media, LBS and smart city sectors access to unique, specialised and cutting-edge infrastructure and facilities which will help them develop quicker and better their products and services
• to foster co-creation and co-development of new technologies and products that combine and fuse core technologies developed by industrial and academic partners
• to create a real-life and online community of  specialists and non-specialists who are interested in such technologies and a venue and forum where they can meet and discuss ideas.

The means by which DSLL involves and engages its main users – members and citizens – is by organizing workshops (real-life and online) to showcase cutting-edge technologies and products under development and by using interactive systems to collect relevant feedback from current and future users.

The DSLL Technology Incubator was created in 2009 by DSLL to support teams and start-up companies in South-Eastern Europe in (further) developing novel technologies and services in the digital media, LBS and smart city domains.

In the beginning of 2012 a new part of DSLL called KidsLab@DSLL was created, which is focused on interactive ICT and digital media education and games for kids. One of the main aims of Kids Lab is to allow children to touch, explore and learn more about new cutting-edge computing, communications, and digital media technologies, by playing with them and experiencing them in specially designed physical and digital spaces.

The Digital Spaces Living Lab, DSLL Technology Incubator, and KidsLab@DSLL, are co-ordinated and managed by Digital Spaces Living Lab Ltd.