Comparing the City Living Labs, from large cities to small urban centers
TIME
Wednesday 21 September
11.00 – 12.30
ORGANISER
City of Torino through its platform initiative “Torino City lab” (www.torinocitylab.com ) & ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs)
LOCATION
Sala Fucine
DESCRIPTION
City labs are a wonderful way of empowering innovation in a holistic and inclusive way, involving all stakeholders of society in creating long-term impacts for the city and to empower the green and digital transition. The forms and activities to spread change and engage citizens can be various: from high technology to art.
However, doing so is never easy, so let us inspire you with examples and best practices of city labs from Europe and beyond.
This debate will explore then different approaches, strategies, governance models as well as challenges and bottlenecks of some leading examples such as Turin (IT), Eindhoven (NL), Nantes (FR), Guenalguacil (SP) and Nagoya (Japan).
A final debate, starting from a keynote speech, will seize the gap between testing and adoption, with a focus on the role of public procurement of innovation and its relationship with the living lab approach.
AGENDA
11h00 Welcome and introduction “what is a City Lab” illustrated (also) by examples from Eindhoven – Wim De Kinderen
11h10 Presentation Torino City Lab – Elena Deambrogio
11h20 Presentation Nantes City Lab – Benoît Cuvelier
11h30 Presentation Genalguacil City Lab – Miguel Angel Herrera Gutiérrez
11h40 Video presentation by Nagoya City Lab
11h50 Round table discussion with Eindhoven, Torino, Nantes and Genalguacil – moderated by Wim De Kinderen
12h05 Keynote speech – Video of Gabriella Racca
12h20 Observations, reflections and conclusions from an EU perspective – Laura Hetel
12h25 Thank you and goodbye – Wim De Kinderen
- Elena Deambrogio, Torino City Lab
- Benoit Cuvelier, Nantes City Lab
- Wim De Kinderen, Brainport Eindhoven
- Miguel Herrera Gutiérrez, Guenalguacil City Lab (SP)
- Toshio Sumi, Nagoya City Lab (Japan) – Video recorded
- Laura Hetel, DG RTD, European Commission
Moderator: Wim De Kinderen, Brainport Eindhoven
Keynote Speaker
Gabriella Racca, UNITO, From testing to services: the role of public procurement of innovation.
SPEAKERS
Wim De Kinderen
Senior Professional in EU Affairs

Wim De Kinderen
Senior Professional in EU AffairsWim De Kinderen is representing the City of Eindhoven within the Brussels based ‘Brainport Eindhoven EU Office’. As such he is a senior professional in EU affairs, and has ample experiences in building alliances and managing European networks.
Elena Deambrogio
Head of Innovation of CTE NEXT, the House of Emerging Technologies of Turin

Elena Deambrogio
Head of Innovation of CTE NEXT, the House of Emerging Technologies of TurinElena Deambrogio, with a background of studying and working in the field of EU Affairs in Brussels, Elena has been working for 20 years at the City of Turin, EU Funds and Innovation Department, in the field of sustainable urban development. Elena is one of the founders of Torino City Lab, Turin's first city living lab, now in its 4th year of operational activity, intended as a place where technology is measured against real needs to offer new solutions to improve the quality of life. She recently curated and submitted the application to MISE for the realization of the House of Emerging Technologies in Turin, winning the call. Today, she is the Head of Innovation of CTE NEXT, the House of Emerging Technologies of Turin, a spin-off of Torino City Lab, which aims to create a diffuse technology transfer center on emerging technologies enabled by 5G capable of promoting business development, skills growth and industrial and urban innovation in strategic sectors for Turin.
Miguel Herrera Gutiérrez
Guenalguacil City Lab (SP)

Miguel Herrera Gutiérrez
Guenalguacil City Lab (SP)Miguel Angel Herrera Gutiérrez was born in November 1977. He grew up in a family of farmers, whose farm is located ten kilometers from the town of Genalguacil. As a teenager he had the great opportunity to visit England with neighbours. That trip and others that followed have given him a wide range of experiences, going from the rural to the big city. In 2011 he became mayor of Genalguacil. He had never imagined being involved in politics or public management. From that moment, Miguel Ángel applied all his business knowledge to change the trajectory of his municipality. He began, among many other things, by opening the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had been closed. This journey began from the works of local artists; the scope and artistic level of the exhibitions and the presence of major artists of the Spanish art scene have been gradually growing, until they have become an unequivocal benchmark for contemporary art in Andalusia. To give the Genalguacil Pueblo Museo project its own identity, other major changes were implemented: the professionalization of the Encuentros de Arte, the creation of Arte Vivo, the creation of Lumen, a festival around light and contemporary art that had its first edition in 2019, as well as the achievement of a wide and valuable cultural agenda throughout the year, which has led Genalguacil to enter the rankings of the Observatory of Culture in Spain in its 2018 edition, ahead of other institutions with million euro budgets, that receive hundreds of thousands of visitors or that have even been declared a World Heritage Site. Nowadays, Miguel Ángel combines the mayorship of Genalguacil with his business life.
Gabriella Racca
Full Professor of Administrative Law at the Department of Management at the University of Turin

Gabriella Racca
Full Professor of Administrative Law at the Department of Management at the University of TurinGabriella M. Racca is Full Professor of Administrative Law at the Department of Management of the University of Torino (Italy). She coordinates the IUS Publicum Network (class A ranking) and she is a member of many international networks. She is in the Board of Directors of the Italian Institute of Administrative Sciences (I.I.A.S.). She is the Director of the Master on Efficiency, Integrity and Innovation in Italian Public Contracts (Master SEIIC), mentioned by the EU Commission as an example of training in public procurement/anti-corruption issues. Since the first edition, she teaches in the diploma/master in “Public procurement regulation in the EU and its global context” (organized by Centre of European Law, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London). She is part of the Scientific Board of the Master in Public Procurement Management for sustainable development and Master en gouvernance et management des marchés publics en appui au développement durable (both organized by the ITC-ILO and University of Torino). She has been Head of Research Units of several EU projects PPI2Innovate, CirPro, Finch and Healthy Ageing and Public Procurement of Innovation and Member of the Advisory Board of the EURIPHI project. She collaborates with many Academic Colleagues of international Universities on different research topics as Administrative Law, Public liability, Integrity, Public Procurement and innovation, digital transition and aggregation models.
Benoit Cuvelier
Co-coordinator, Nantes City Lab City team

Benoit Cuvelier
Co-coordinator, Nantes City Lab City teamBenoit Cuvelier graduated from the École Supérieure de Commerce Et de Management - ESCEM, in 2002 he obtained a Post Graduation from CY Cergy Paris Université in Transport and Urban Mobility. He was Project Officer at the International Labor Organization, managing international projects on entrepreneurship, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and private sector development (1995-1999). He worked in Dexia Bank as training manager and in other private and public organisations in France and abroas. He joined Nantes Metropole in 2006 and hold several positions:; From 2016 to 2021, he was Nantes coordinator for the Horizon 2020 “smart city” project called mySMARTLife and also coordinated Nantes application to the European capital of Innovation in 2019 which was successful. He joined Nantes City Lab City team in 2021 as co-coordinator.
Toshio Sumi
Director of Startup Support Office, Economic Affairs Bureau, City of Nagoya

Toshio Sumi
Director of Startup Support Office, Economic Affairs Bureau, City of NagoyaToshio Sumi is Director of Startup Support Office, Economic Affairs Bureau, City of Nagoya. After joining the government office of Nagoya city, he worked on industrial development in the Economic Affairs Bureau after completing his duty at Nagoya City University. He engaged in the management of incubation facilities and university-industry collaboration office work. He got a new assignment to propel robot and AI-related projects such as verification tests for advanced technologies after organizing “Robo Cup 2017 Nagoya Japan”. In 2018, He presented the "Nagoya Innovation Strategy" to advance the establishment of "NAGOYA INNOVATOR'S GARAGE" and "NAGONO CAMPUS" as innovation hubs in cooperation with the Central Japan Economic Federation. He was assigned as the first director of the Startup Support Office to manage various startup programs and an Urban Testing program named “Hatch Technology Nagoya”.
Laura Hetel
Policy Officer for Future Urban Systems at the European Commission

Laura Hetel
Policy Officer for Future Urban Systems at the European CommissionLaura Hetel is a Policy Officer for Future Urban Systems at the European Commission, DG Research & Innovation. She works on the implementation of Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission and on the New European Bauhaus. She is also responsible for international cooperation on urban challenges, including for the global Urban Transitions Mission of Mission Innovation. “