OpenLivingLab Days 2015

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Report
25th 28th of August 2015 in Istanbul Turkey

Connecting, Sharing & Collaborating

OpenLivingLab Days, previously the ENoLL
Summer School, is the annual summit of the
worldwide Living Lab community combing 4 days
networking, sharing, learning and exploitation of
theory, methods & tools. Comprised of interactive
sessions, workshops, lively discussion panels with
excursions and off-site visits the event aims to
give the participants a wider insight about
models, theories and technologies related to
Living Labs. Participants have the opportunity to
gain hands-on experience from the leading
experts on the subject and to network with other
Living Lab enthusiasts.
After five successful editions in Paris 2010,
Barcelona 2011, Helsinki 2012, Manchester 2013,
Amsterdam 2014, the 6th edition was held in

Istanbul, Turkey, from the 25th to the 28th of

August 2015, organised by European Network of
Living Labs (ENoLL) and hosted by Basaksehir
Living Lab and Baakehir Municipality.
Attracting almost 200 participants from around
the world, OpenLivingLab Days provided the
ENoLL community a window into the innovator
scene in Istanbul and how Turkish organisations
are innovating with end users. Hosted at
numerous locations across Istanbul the
conference featured an exciting programme
including a research day, worldwide Living Lab
conference, interactive workshops, visits to local
Turkish innovation spaces, pitching and a
calendar of social events and touristic visits.

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Open

Research Day: 25th of August

OpenLivingLab Days opened for its 6th edition on
the 25th of August 2015 and kicked off with the
Research Day at Basaksehir Living Lab where
researchers from around the world presented their
academic research in the field of open innovation
and Living Lab methodologies.
As a rather young and recent phenomenon, Living
Labs create numerous challenges and issues to be
tackled by both scholars and practitioners. We feel
it is necessary to add to both the theoretical and
practical knowledge on Living Labs in order to
advance the learning in this field. Within the
OpenLivingLab Days a call for papers was launched
in the Spring of 2015 to address both conceptual
and empirical challenges and stimulate discussion
on a number of Living Lab related topics.
34 papers were submitted by researchers coming
from all over the world for OpenLivingLab Days
2015. An international review panel led by Prof.
Pieter Ballon (VUB Brussels) assessed the articles
and finally accepted 17 papers. These were all
individually presented during the Research Day in
three themed sessions and included into the
conference proceedings. An online version is now

Inspiring hosts: Basaksehir Living Lab

available of the selected published papers and

includes a great variety of papers from different
domains and cases for example Living Lab panel
management, Living Labs in the tourism industry and
the use of wearables in Living Lab testing.
The paper presented by Dimitri Schuurman from
iMinds in Belgium and entitled Living Labs: a
systematic literature review won the Veli-Pekka
Niitamo Prize for best academic contribution. The
prize, awarded during the Worldwide Living Lab
Conference on August 26th, was given based upon
the initial reviewers marks but also the votes of all
the participants collected in a co-creation manner
during the event.
For the first time in Istanbul OpenLivingLab Days
featured a non-academic session sharing relevant
case studies including lab practice in Austria &
France. Presentation available here. The research day
concluded with a presentation from Lorenz Erdmann
at Fraunhofer ISI who spoke about the Living Lab
potential in Germany and roadmapping and shared
fascinating insights into the future development and
scope
of
the
German
open
innovation
scene. Presentation available here
In parallel to the research sessions on the first day of
OpenLivingLab Days ENoLL hosted its 2015 General
Assembly where, most significantly,
ENoLL elected its new leadership
team. Dr. Tuija Hirvikoski, Director
at Laurea University of Applied
Sciences, was elected as ENoLL
President and Chair of the Council.
Prof. Dr. Pieter Ballon, Director of
iMinds Living Labs, and Professor at
the Vrije Universiteit Brussel was reelected as the International
Secretary of the Association and
Mr. Esa Ala-Uotila, Customer
Relationship Director at TAMK,
Suuntaamo, was elected Treasurer
of the Association. The ENoLL
Council was consolidated to 18

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Open

ENoLL General Assembly 2015 ENoLL General Assembly 2015

Living Labs
drive
collaboration
for the benefit
of the global
good
Ilari Lindy,
World Bank
Group at
OpenLivingLab
Days 2015

representatives, with the re-election of some of its existing members

and the election of two new members: Prof. Joelle Mastelic, Professor
& Researcher at the University of Applied Science Western
Switzerland (Energy Living Lab) and Dr. Brigitte Trousse, President of
France Living Labs.

Conference Day: 26th of August

Officially opened by Mr. Mevlt Uysal, Baakehir Mayor, the
Conference Plenary, featured inspirational local keynote speakers. The
audience also listened to engaging presentations from Mr. Mehmet
Bykeki President of TIM (Turkey Export Assembly) and the
Secretary General of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Mr Hayri
Baral. The local speakers highlighted that hosting OpenLivingLab
Days was a great honor for the city of Istanbul, the fastest growing city
in Europe, helping to contribute to an Istanbul innovation culture and
kick start the Turkish commitment to building a national network of
Living Labs. Mr Mehmet spoke also about how Living Labs will be one
of the key catalysts of the development innovation &
entrepreneurship ecosystems in Turkey over the coming years.
Following the morning keynotes ENoLL announced the results of the
9th Wave and officially welcomed 25 new members to our ever
growing Living Lab community. The ceremony included a presentation
on the evolution and the current status of the ENoLL network after

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Open
the 9 Waves given by Francesco Molinari and new
ENoLL President Tuija Hirvikoski highlighting that
with the conclusion of the 9th Wave, ENoLL has
supported 395 historically recognised Living Labs
and engages 170 active members today. The
network is increasingly international with 20% of
members now coming from outside Europe and
this trend was reflected in the 9th Wave where the
new ENoLL members originate from Europe,
Canada, India, the USA, Tunisia & Mauritius.
Discover more about the 9th Wave Living Labs
here.

engaged in a dynamic pitching session where they

presented their projects, organisations, Living Labs
and new initiatives in only 4 minutes. This pitching
has been very successful in previous editions of the
conference as it allows members new and old to
share and promote concepts in an interesting
format maximising the potential for networking
opportunities over the course of the event.

The afternoon Panel Discussion on Living Labs

what path for the future moderated by Ersin
Pamukszer (Co-Founder of Istanbul Startup
BootCamp, Co-Founder Istanbul StartersHub and
CEO of Basaksehir Living-Lab) featured Emiliya
Hubavenska
(European
Commission,
DG
CONNECT), Ilari Lindy (Senior Operations Officer,
Transport and ICT Global Practice, World Bank) and
Nuria de Lama (ICT Program Manager at ATOS
Research and Innovation, Vice-Secretary General
Big Data Value Association). Although diverse in
background and profession the panelist were
united in the messages they conveyed to the
audience. They enforced that one of the major roles
for Living Labs in the future is the empowerment
of future generations; educating them for
innovation and entrepreneurship but not only
looking to the citizens and SMEs when referring to
this education
but giving
governments,
municipalities and universities key roles in the
discussion and process as without participation of
different actors we cannot develop sustainable &
long term solutions for problems. The panel also
stressed that Living labs can and will increasingly
drive cross border collaboration - and as
highlighted by Ilari Lindy, drive international
collaboration for the benefit of the global good.
Living Labs also have a key role to play in ensuring
the interoperability of products and services in
order to facilitate their scalability across Europe &
beyond.

The conference continued with two days of dynamic

workshops and seminars learning, sharing and
building future collaborations featuring workshop
strands relating to Living Lab as a Service, Living Lab
Methods & Tools, Smart Cities, Health & Wellbeing,

At the end of the conference sessions participants

Workshops & Visits: 27th and 28th of

August

Officially opening of the Conference Day by Mr.

Mevlt Uysal, Baakehir Mayor

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Open
International Living Labs presenting their
projects at the Living Lab fair

within the open innovation field. In addition to the

challenges faced there were also many inspiring
success stories presented that inspired the
community during the workshops like Istanbul Design
Factory in Turkey, Smart City Lab in Kalasatama in
Finland, CRIR-Rehabilitation Living Lab in the Mall in
Canada and Les Labos in France just to name a few.
In the afternoons social and innovation visits were
organised for participants to visit the Turkish Airlines
Air flight Simulator Center, TAV Airport
Management Company and STA stanbul Waste
Management and Recycling Company in order to
discover more on how Istanbul and world renowned
Turkish companies were innovating.

Design, Culture & Creativity, Social Innovation,

Gamification and more.
22 different workshops were hosted over two days
by Living Labs, foundations, partner networks and
collaborative projects. Workshops organisers and
participants alike remarked upon the openness of
all participants to share best practice. One of the
main messages taken away by participants was
that many Living Labs are facing the same
challenges even when working in different sectors,
with different types of governance and in different
cultural contexts. United by these challenges
facilitated our community during OpenLivingLab
Days 2015 to better explore, share and learn to
solve problems and creative innovative solutions

During our evenings in Istanbul we also visited the

Istanbul
Municipality
Project
Demonstration
Museum, Miniaturk, the Rahmi M Koc Museum and
their in-house restaurant Halat and enjoyed a dinner
with Basaksehir Municipality at Glet in Basaksehir.
The highlight of the social calendar was the evening
boat cruise on the Bosphorus, the strait (waterway)
that forms part of the boundary between Europe and
Asia and joins the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea
in Istanbul, where participants could enjoy the
spectacular views of Istanbul at sunset with a
delicious dinner whilst building closer relationships
with other members of the community.
The conference concluded with a closing ceremony
Including words from Alberto Martin Torras (Head of
Asia Pacific and Middle East, Smart City Expo World
Congress), Jarmo Eskelinen (Former ENoLL Chair &

Exploring new technologies, smart living applications & Living Lab projects in Turkey

OpenLivingLab Days 2015

Open
CEO Forum Virium Helsinki) and final words from
Mevlt Uysal (Mayor of Baakehir).

A special thanks for the organisation and support of

OpenLivingLab Days 2015 to our hosts and sponsors
without whom the event would not have been
possible: the hosts Basaksehir Living Lab and
Baakehir Municipality and sponsors Istanbul
Metropolitan Municipality, Baheehir University,
Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), StartersHub,
Startupbootcamp Istanbul, stanbul Design Factory,
Fongogo and TTNet.
If you missed the event and want to discover more:
Photos are available on our Flickr account.
Videos of all the keynotes, panel discussion &
9th wave welcoming ceremony are available
on our Vimeo channel.
Slides from the research day, keynotes, panel
discussions & workshops are available on the
at www.openlivinglabdays.com by clicking on
the relevant session in the agenda.

Workshops in action at OpenLivingLab Days 2015

We are also pleased to announce that the 2016

edition of OpenLivingLab Days will be hosted in
Montreal, Canada, together with Communautique
Living Lab and Concordia University, in collaboration
with Tourisme Montreal, the Quartier de
l'innovation, members of the Quebec Network of
Living Labs and France Living Labs in August next
year. This is the first time the conference will be
hosted outside of Europe connecting more directly
with a North American audience. The move also
reflects the increasing international nature of ENoLL,
which now has 20% of its members located outside of
Europe. We look forward to partnering with many
local organisations to make the event successful and
in order to showcase the best of the Canadian open
innovation community to the worldwide networking
of Living Labs.
Visit www.openlivinglabdays.com for information on
past & future editions of the event and join the
community on Facebook for all the latest news:
www.facebook.com/openlivinglabdays.