Citilab in Cornella de Llobregat, Spain is a case study of an open living lab located in a small-to-medium sized city. Citilab addresses five key problems in developing as a living lab: engaging local community members as innovation partners, starting an innovation program relevant to local needs, balancing innovation and learning, managing collaboration between different stakeholder groups, and developing a sustainable funding model. By taking a bottom-up, user-driven approach focused on local issues, Citilab has built a community of over 4,500 members working on projects in areas like senior services, education, arts, and museums.

1. Open innovation
systems,
living labs and SMCs:
The case study of Citilab, Cornella de
Llobregat, Spain
Artur Serra
i2cat/Citilab
Summer School of Lls
Paris.
August 25-27, 2010

2. Index
I. Towards open innovation systems
II. Citilab, Cornella de Llobregat, a case
study on LL at SMC.
III. Some topics for the agenda.

3. i2CAT Foundation

4. 1. Towards open innovation systems

5. The “national innovation systems”
The national innovation systems
(Nelson,Rosenberg, Porter... 1993).
Characteristics:
– Science-Technology-Industry
– Science the Enless Frontier, V. Bush
– Linear model. R&D--->Innovation
– Triple Helix, Universities, Gov., Industry
– Clusters, (Porter)...

6. “CMU, a Design Culture” (1990-93)
NSF Model DARPA model
(Vanevar Bush 1945) (ARPA, 1959)
Science: Computer Science:
basic research Basic Technological
research
(Strategic Research)
Technology: Applied technological
Applied research research
Industry: “Dual use”: Military
development and Industry

7. H.Simon. “The Sciences of the Artificial”
 Natural worlds  Artificial worlds
 Natural sciences  Sciences of the
artificial
 Necessity  Possibility
 Discovering  Designing
 “Facts”  Deeds
 Science-Technology  Computer
and Industry science-”Dual use”
community.

8. The Internet was
a child of this culture

9. Evolution: Open networks, open source,
open innovation
-1991. “Internet is for everyone” ISOC.
-2000. Web 2.0, Wikis, social netwoks
-2001. Innocentive, crowdsourcing.
-2005. “Democratizing innovation”....
-2006. Corelabs project: Open Living labs.

10. Extending innovation as a culture.
What happen when a new practice is
beginning to be shared by others?...
It becomes a culture: a set of values,
knowledges and practices shared by a
community.
Open living labs are extending the
innovation culture to everyone.

11. 2. The Open Living Labs hypothesis
Could it be possible to organize the
information society as a living lab?
Could we think in different generations of
information societies, being Living labs the
next one?

12. EnoLL-Europe 2010:
the tip of a global open living labs movement

13. II. Citilab, Cornella de Llobregat:
a case study on LL at SMC.

14. Citilab of Cornella (Barcelona)

15. Spanish Lls accredited by EnoLL
August 2010
http://maps.google.es/maps/ms?hl=es&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111599577425807502671.00048e171fdb4238bfe3a

16. Why Living labs in SMCs.
a) Because they want it.
Cornella and other Catalan cities wants to develop LLs.
b) Because they can.
SMCs can have all the components for a PPPP.
– Botnia LL: Center for Distance Spanning Technology at
Lulea Institute of Technology, Big and SMEs, City of Luleä
(45.467 hb), in the periphery of Europe, relevant role at
Corelabs, (2006)
– Even the big Lls are SMCs : 22@, Arabiaranta,
...neigborhoods in a big city.
– Also the smallest Lls are gathering in consortia of small
municipalities.
c) Because may be... we are wrong.
“Piecemeal social engineering”, K. Popper

18. The context
Cornellá de Llobregat
Working class city in metropolitan area of BCN
86.519 inhabitants,(INE 2009)
. De-industrialization. Increasing service economy
Elder population: 17,39% (BCN, 20,43%)
Secondary educational centers (5).
No university or tertiary center (BCN, 8)
People with university degree, 9,31%. (BCN, 20,17%)
Immigrants, 17,26% (BCN, 17,54%)
http://www.diba.cat/hg2/menu_ind.asp

19. 90s. Access and digital literacy.
- 90s Digital cities, telecenters, community
networking,...CornellaNet.
-2000. First Global Congress on Community
Networking. Barcelona Nov. 2000.
- 2010. Still there is big community of telecenters
and internet access points in the SMCs in
Catalonia.
-Economic crisis is accelerating the need of
changing this old digital policies.

20. 2000s. Innovation literacy.
-Problem:
– Once the people is connected then what?
– Only users of technology or also
producers?
– Introducing the culture of design, of
innovation.
– Introducing innovation literacy
-Next generation community networks....”Citilab”
(2002).

21. Citilab Project (2007-2010)
Problem solving approach:
1. How to develop an user-driven LL at an SMC?.
2. How to create an innovation program with
results?
3. How to innovate and to train simultanously?
4. How to organize the manage of the institution?
5. How to get funding and make it sustainable?.

22. 1st problem: People, people, people!.

23. a) No formal innovation personnel in the
SMC.
a) By formal innovation people we understand people trained in
working in the current innovation systems, knowing
– how to develop innovation projectes,
– how to produce innovations in the form of new products
and services,
– How to write proposals, speaking English,write papers,
make patents,...
b) Bringing them to Citilab! Initial volunteers, UPC computer scientist
and an anthropologist.
– Solving the “Out of the Paradise” syndrome.
– Imaginingg new research and innovation
oportunities out of research universities or big
corporations

24. The big gap
-Municipalities, at least in Spain, have no innovation
professionals. No Ph.D. trained people.
-Local SMEs have little formal innovation experience.
-Universities has excess of Ph.D. with no opportunities in the
academia.
-The big gap. May be one of the reasons why technology
transfer offices doesn't work.
-Possible solutions:
– Importing talent to SMCs Lls (Citilab)
– Creating innovation cells as Lls seeds (UPC)
– Working with Applied Sciences Universities or Insitutes of
Technology as innovation universities.
– Creating bottom up open research and innovative
structures like European LL Schools or Institutes .

25. b) The innovative user? Who are they?
- Are there innovative users in SMCs?
- We found at least one:
– An innovative politician at City Hall. “The ICT fan”. The
current Excutive Director of Citilab, V. Badenes.
• He looked for us, as university experts on CNs,
in 1998 inviting us to their community.
• He gathered the initial ICT user community.
Cornellanet.
• We worked together in the creation since 2002
of Citilab as an innovation center. The name of
Lls didn't exist yet.

26. The current Citilab community
- Two ongoing fieldworks studies, Columbia Univ. and Universitat
de Barcelona (J. Colobrans).
-In april 2010 Citilab has 4.500 registered members.
-85% of them coming from Cornella and neighbors cities.
-20% born in 42 countries outside Spain.
-24% of members have tertiary education (vs. 9% in Cornella)
-The basic question Citilab staff ask to the newcomer is:
“What do you want to do?
If you know how to do it , you can do it here by yourself.
If not, we can help you.
Sharing is our basic way of doing”.

27. Citilab and the model of diffusion of
innovations. Everett Rogers, 1962.
2,163 11.680 29.416 29.416 13.849

28. 2nd problem:
How to start a LL innovation program at an
SMC?

29. Priority to local needs: bottom up approach.
-Discovering local needs and opportunities.
Ethnografic fieldwork.
-Connecting local needs with global issues...or not yet.
-From innovative topics to research ones.
Examples:
Users Project Research topic
-Retired people 55+........ Seniorlab..............AAL and others
-Second. Teachers (30-50s).. Digital Horchad......PLEs.
-Musicians, (20-30s)............ Musiclab...............Digital content
-Children (10-20).................. Scracht...............Comp.Thinking

32. Seniors are different!
-Current seniors are healthier, they have more money, and
more free time for learning, for being creative, and why
not for participating in innovative projects...
-Seniors (55-75) are not elders (80+).
-One of the few areas in which Europe is just ahead of the
rest of the world
-Extension of neotenic characteristics. (Charlton, B.G. 2007)
-How about a senior industry?: senior fashion, senior
universities,knowledge tourism, etc.

34. A living lab on e-learning
-The teachers need a living lab for innovating in
teaching.
– They are fed up of “technology harrassment”
-The “Hort Digital”, an innovative project for building a
LL on e-learning, specially for teachers
– A Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
– A Problem based Learning approach
-Results:
– Very possitive results with teachers
– Support from the Dep. of Education to
opening the project to other centers.

36. Problem: how to enhance e-arts for the Net
Generation?
-Big demand from Net Generation on arts training.
-Arts school professors don't play. Professional performers
don't teach.
-Who are these youngers?
– The Net Generation (between 80s and 2000s)
– Shawn Fanning (born 1980). Napster (2000)
– Mark Zuckerberg (born 1984). Facebook (2004)
– The sons of Steve Jobs (born 1955), a graphical
designer of the baby boomer generation.
Macintosh (1984)

37. E-arts is serious business.
-Classical view: Business is hardware, technology, “real
stuff”
-But we live in a knowledge society, and knowledge is
“inmaterial stuff”.
-American universities science and technology is mostly a
“soft power”.
-Arts belong to this kind of power, like gaming, net art,
cultural heritage, 3D cinema, or bollywood digital
movies.
-The artists create the vision, the design, the “new reality”.
Limits of “sciences of the artificial”. Arts should be
included in the new LL curriculum.

38. Edutech: Computational thinking for
everyone
Scracht, learning programming with kids.

39. Can Museums become LLs?
Expolab project (2009-2010)
- A collaboration between the Citilab and the
Tech Museum at Silicon Valley.
- How engage citizens in the design of the
exhibitions and activities of a tech center
- Could we transform science museums in real
living labs?

42. 3rd problem: The innovating or/and learning
dilema

43. To innovate versus to learn?
1. What the user want at Citilab? To learn, specially
ICT.
2. Are there innovators?
“Nobody offered to me the oportunity of doing it
before”.
3. User have innovative ideas. But they are not trained to
make it real.
4. Can this process be learned with the help of a formal
trained personnel in innovation?

44. Breaking the barriers between innovation
and learning
- Introducing PBL and PLE methodologies.
Learning through innovation.
- Peer2peer PBL? Adapting PBL to a Web 2.0 era.
- Learning technologies to innovate.
-How about design thinking?
– CMU core curricula on design:
“ The role of design in liberal professional
education”. Preston Covey

47. A new hypothesis:
You can learn to innovate.
“La innovació s'apren”.
90s. “Internet is for everyone”
2010. To innovate is for everyone.

48. Can LLs become schools of innovation?:
a kind of organization dedicated to train people to
innovate, to solve problems, to develop projects in
all the areas of economic, social or cultural interest
for the community.

49. 4th problem: Who rules? How to manage a
LL?

50. Who rules? Cultures in conflict and
cooperation.
-Politicians, managers and researchers: different cultures in
conflic and cooperation.
-Taking advantages of everyone.
– Local politicians know everyone.
– Researchers translate demands into innovation projects.
– Managers connect with the economic world.
-Yes, but ...who rules?
– Co-creation needs Co-direction.
– Tentative solution: “Collegiated Direction” at
Citilab
– Deeper solution: Innovation in managing, the ever-
beta organizations (Stark,D.)

51. The new cooperative structures:
Why a Foundation?
Citilab is a non-for-profit foundation (like i2cat,...)
-New cooperative structure allowing
a) PPPP
b) New goals like innovation, training,...
c) More flexibility to manage.
d) A neutral collaborative point in the community.
Other juridical formats are possible.

52. How about companies?
A living lab should include companies,
specially SME
Companies are increasingly interested in
open innovation
Do not confront open innovation and living
lab.
Can a Ll work for a company?

53. 5th problem: How to get funding?

54. Citilab funding model and its process
1. Starting by local institutions.
Contribution with local infrastructure and basic operational
team budget... (consolidated step)
2. Then, regional and national funding bodies providing grants for
information society projects. Plan Avanza. SETSI. (consolidated)
3. Then exploring European funding. (initial steps)
4. Simultaneously with commercial partners. (initial steps)
5. Finally, engaging users as co-funders via training and new services
(initial steps).

55. Looking for a bottom-up innovation funding
model
Traditional innovation systems are based in top-down
funded models, big national agencies (DARPA,
NSF,...), big corporations. Few institutions get
majority of funding. Concentration.
Open innovation systems need a different bottom up
funding model. Long-tail funding model. User-driven
funded models.
How?

56. Tips to develop an open LL funding model.
1. Introducing innovation projects and structures at the
local and regionals policies, connected globally.
2. Developing with Small and Medium local innovation
projects for local SMEs communities with applied
sciences universities, instituts of technology and other
local innovations institutes.
3. Educating the local citizen in having responsibity in their
economic and social future. Co-payment of the training
and innovative services. Microfinancing.

57. III. Some topics for the future agenda

58. 1. Research issues.

59. Open innovation sytems
-Are Lls an alternative to clusters? Are
there opposite models?
France. Discussion about “pôles des
competitivité” and Lls.
-Developing living labs pilots from technolgy
parks and regional clusters and pôles des
competivités.

60. Livinglabing, livinglabism, innovationship
Lulea, Livinglabing
i2cat, Livinglabism (J. Colobrans) or innovationship
How to spread the culture of innovation to the general
public?
Research lines:
– Learning to innovate.
– Elaborate an innovativeness index
– User-based micro-financing model

61. Multiscale and blended Living labs
-Multiscaling.
– Metropolitan, SMCs, and rural living labs
– Beyond “The world is flat” (Friedman)
and “World is Spiky” (Florida)
-Blended Lls
– Physical structures and virtual networks
– Lls and COINS, collaborative innovation
networks

62. A Living Lab's revolution?
Can innovation be developed as a culture,
as a shared knowledge and practice in
your community, company, university or
city? How?

63. 2. Final practical suggestions
May be we need a open Journal on Living
Labs and a networked media channel with
lots of contributions
May be we need an open School of Living
Labs during all year long.
May be we need open Institutes of Lls
promoting research and innovation on the
new innovation systems.

64. Moltes gracies
artur.serra@i2cat.net