Great ideas grow better under zero– Innovating in smart, cold and rural

regionsAnna Ståhlbröst

Assistant Scientific Director of EnablingICT

Luleå University of TechnologyAnna.Stahlbrost@ltu.se

Marita HolstCenter for Distance spanning

Technology (CDT)Luleå University of Technology

Marita.holst@ltu.se

What do we mean by Smart Regions?

Smart refers to when investments andinnovations contribute to sustainablegrowth with a high quality of life and a wiseuse of natural resources through active andopen involvement of citizens

Strengths in our region• Strong economical growth• Entrepreneurial people• Unique natural resources• A magnificent nature• Broadband for “all”• Attractive living environments• Dynamic and rich cultural life• Collaboration between the university and the society• Cold, Dark, Slippery, Snowy, Silent, Distances• Small villages and cities –

shorter ways to decision, trust

Challenges for the region

• Geographical distances – most remote in Europe• Decreasing population – decreasing tax income• Growing amount of elderly– increased societal

costs• Power structures –increase young peoples

influence• Need of infrastructure (transport/IT/service)• Cold, Dark, Slippery, Snowy, Peripheral• Small villages and cities – many want their own

solution – unhealthy competition/protectionism

But how can we build a smarterregion?

Living Lab - An Open Environment forHuman-centric ICT Innovation

Characteristics of Living Lab approach• Design, test and experiment in real-life contexts• Encourage citizens (e.g. potential users) to be engage to

take active part and influence innovations from earlyneedfinding to market launch

• Develop digital service innovations with citizens and theirneeds in the center to create value

• Adopts an open approach and strives to elicit resources ofdifferent types from the environment

• Partly distributed, use of ICT for citizen engagement

• Multi-stakeholder involvement, the whole value-chain

• Focus on developing sustainable innovations with asustainable process

Living Lab ActivitiesHappens wherever the people are or could be

What can be gained from citizen engagement?

• Increased possibility for innovation success• A large amount of new ideas to innovations• More innovative ideas compared to in-house innovations• Increased user satisfaction• Suggestions for redesign of products/services• New target user groups• Increased knowledge among the involved stakeholders• Established relations with new business partners• Faster innovation process (shortened time for

development) by support from end-users for decisionmaking

• Smoother adoption of innovations

Thank you!