TOPIC DEBATE
Thursday, 9th September, 10:00-11:15 CEST
The Session Developing innovation ecosystems will be centered on how Ecosystems can face the recovery towards the post-COVID digital society. We will focus a relevant part of our debate on one of the main pillars of the DLLD21: Co-creation as a relevant component of ecosystem development. Particularly, we will focus on how SMEs and other stakeholders can make use of current instruments for boosting innovation in their respective ecosystems, how to co-create with SMEs, to offer them both lab structures and real-life environments to innovate in regional and larger ecosystems. European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) represent a good example and an excellent opportunity for that. We will identify how the Community of living labs can contribute to this ecosystem development, with specific examples for digital innovation hubs. Although citizens as end users are not present in the equation yet, pathways for citizen engagement can, of course, be found, and pointers to that will be discussed.
Anne-Marie Sassen (Deputy and Acting Head of Unit, of DG CONNECT, Unit A4, Digital Transformation of Industrial Ecosystems) will present a general approach to the specific instrument of EDIH, and she will develop on the points already presented last year at our DLLD2020. Indeed, EDIHs provide the test-before-invest approach and this brought to real life-settings is the initial path to living lab approach, but they appear as a relevant tool for regional ecosystems to advance in innovative solutions.
Fernando Vilariño (CVC Associate Director, ENoLL Chairperson) will participate in the session by providing an ENoLL’s view on how living labs could contribute on different topics, including capacity building. The specific opportunities arising for AI will be also discussed
Petri Pohjola (Tampere University of Applied Sciences, and ENoLL member) will showcase their case study as a living lab working in B2B for the manufacturing industry. Indeed, SMEs are the core, and the approach to use the actual real-life environments as boosters of innovation in local ecosystems is fully aligned with this strategy. Although the full approach is not yet including a strategy for direct involvement of the citizens in the process, the case study allows for the identification of specific pathways.
Sandra Planes Satorra (Policy Analyst, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation at OECD) will present the latest work developed by OECD, explicitly focusing in co-creation as a tool for ecosystem development, also commenting on living labs as relevant instruments for that to happen.
From a more general perspective, we would also like to approach the idea to the audience that a community of ENoLL members and other institutions are developing different pathways with diverse approaches within the different Action-oriented Task Forces. Co-creation for Innovation in public administration will be tackled from this point of view.
Associate Director at Computer Vision Centre and Associate Professor at UAB. Co-Founder of the Library Living Lab
Prof. Fernando Vilariño is Associate Director of the Computer Vision Centre and Associate Professor of the Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. He is currently lecturing in Robotics and Multimedia Systems. His research has been linked to diverse areas of Computer Vision and Machine Learning, and Robotics. His current research is focused on the development of the link between physical and digital objects. He has led different projects related to citizen science through the implementation of a model for Living Labs in the context of Open Innovation. He has participated in the different workshops and invited talks in the context of ICT and culture. Dr. Vilariño has been awarded with the Spanish Gov. Ramon y Cajal Grant (2010), and Google Academy Award (2014) for his research. As Associate Director for the CVC he has contributed to the technology transfer of Computer Vision technology with setup of a number of start-ups in the field of Machine Learning and Computer Vision. He is co-leading the implementation of the Regional Computer Vision Ecosystem, the regional economic driver of AI. He has developed a model for innovation based on living labs that allows for multi-stake holder user centric approach. Fernando Vilariño is the current Chairman of the European Network of Living Labs.