Living Labs for Social and User-driven Open Innovation

This is the presentation for this evening's NetSquared NetTuesday Meetup.

NetSquared - for Social and User-driven Open Innovation

View more presentations from Marlon Parker.

Athlone Living Lab: Community Meeting

Last night a team of the Athlone Living Lab (ALL) had an opportunity to share the vision and heart of the ALL project at an open Community Meeting with the Athlone Government Counselor present as well(See picture)


The room was filled with an air of excitement as it filled up with members from the local Bridgetown community. We had Brent Williams (part of the reconstructed team and community developer), Reagen Allen (local entrepreneur) and myself sharing more about the Athlone Living Lab. We presented the vision of ALL as well as some of the projects available to the community members for engagement. It was encouraging to hear the interest in ALL by the community and we know that we are about to take this initiative to the next level.

The Promise of Living Labs

Using Living Labs as an approach to social innovation brings alot of promise and as one of the presenters showed at the COFISA Innovation Workshop the following should be considered:

- Skills Access
- Reusability
- Co-Innovation
- Acceptance
- Commercialisation
- End-User Drive

In the context of the Athlone Living Lab the above promises are key to ensure the emergence of social innovation for the Communities in Tension (CiTs).

Athlone Living Lab: Student Buzz

Yesterday we officially had students from Cape Peninsula University of Technology joining us at the Athlone Living Lab in Bridgetown. The initiative is where students work in the local community with citizens to co-develop ICT solutions for the community. The students will be based at the community development space for the next 2 weeks and will learn more about the Living Lab. The Athlone Living Lab is co-sponsored by COFISA and a collaboration between CPUT, Impact Direct and the Bridgetown community.

Innovation Systems: Unlocking Potential

Being part of the COFISA Innovation Systems workshop opened the doors for many more opportunities to Technology for Community Empowerment. The African context lend itself to strong Social Innovations not just important for survival but also the possibility to globalisation.

Some of the areas that were discussed during Day 1 at the workshop was the National Implementation Innovation Strategies in both South Africa and Finland, exploring foresight as a tool for innovation, the Triple Helix Collaboration and Science Parks as Regional Development Catalysts.

Day 2 was especially interesting as the core discussions were around Living Labs, Knowledge and Innovation in Rural Development, monitoring and evaluation of Innovation Systems and some of the innovation developments in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The workshop has clearly indicated that there are a need for more innovative strategies in a developing country but also that it should be inclusive of all parties involved in the process of innovation.