Living Lab 'Medellín Digital'

European Network of Living Labs AISBL, Pleinlaan 9, 1050 Brussels, Belgium www.openlivinglabs.eu info@enoll.org
Membership Application
ENOLL 5TH WAVE
1. Basic Facts
Living Lab (host) organisation
Living Lab short name MedellinDigitalLL
Living Lab full name (title) Living Lab Medellín Digital
Host organisation name Fundación EPM
Host organisation VAT number (Fundación EPM) Tax ID No. 811024803 - 3
Host organisation type Program of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin
Postal address Carrera 43 B # 11 - 10
Post code 05001000
City Medellin
Country Colombia
Telephone +(57-4) 444-4963
Fax +(57-4) 516-8532
Web-site (URL) http://www.medellindigital.gov.co
Living Lab established [year] 2007
Living Lab manager / Main contact person
First name Yan Camilo
Last name Vergara Gallo
Title (Mr/Mrs/Ms) Mr.
Postal address Carrera 43 B # 11 – 10, Medellin
Post code, City 05001000
Country Colombia
Email yan.vergara@medellindigital.gov.co
2. Membership Motivation
“Medellín Digital” is a program of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin created through Municipal Agreement 005
dated March, 2008, and incorporated to the 2008-2011 Municipal Development Plan under Pillar 5: A City with
Regional & Global Projection; Component: To connect Medellin with Colombia and with the rest of the world.
The primary target of this Program is to enhance and facilitate the citizens’ sound use of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT’s), particularly in three fields: Education, Entrepreneurship and Interaction
with the Government. The purpose is to support social, economic and cultural development processes with the
community, framing the needs and restrictions of Medellin.
Based on the aforementioned, the main motivation to turn Medellin into an official Living Lab stems from the
significant experiences that the city has had to this date through the “Medellín Digital” program. The
achievements are evidenced in the different intervention sites of the Program such as Public Educational
Institutions equipped with computers and counseled under the Open Classroom (Aula Abierta) model, the
Zonal Business Development Centers (known as CEDEZO), and the Government websites (Municipal
Transportation offices, Culture Centers, Government Bureaus in rural areas of the city, and public settings
such as parks, squares, sports fields, among others). Visit http://www.medellindigital.gov.co
The progress made in terms of the Program’s social impact through its Appropriation strategies are worth
highlighting due to their substantial changes within the community’s labor, educational and citizenship setting,
based on the effective use of new technologies.

Membership Application: ENoLL 5th
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MedellínDigitalLL Page 2 of 8
Moreover, these processes have stemmed from digital literacy among those which have had not had any
contact whatsoever with technological resources, and are later appropriated. The Program also provides free
access to these resources and training on their use. This has led to equip strategic sites such as Public
Schools, Entrepreneurship Centers, and Government Websites, all framed within a public policy of the city that
promotes on-line service access and qualifies the citizens for a better quality of life.
The above mentioned settings have turned into Living Labs since they engage several factors: Community,
Appropriation, Innovation and Transformation.
The “Medellín Digital” program shall provide a close to 4-year experience in ICT inclusion under a digital
territories model and is a beacon of inclusion in Colombia. This significantly closes the digital gap and
improves the living conditions and the citizens’ participation in public policies.
The matters that need further development include:
 Infrastructure improvement and equipping different intervention sites of the Program to achieve 100%
coverage in these places.
 Conduct a qualitative and quantitative measurement of the Program’s impact on the citizens.
 Enhance the Appropriation strategy within the communities based close to Educational Institutions, as well
as Government Websites and Entrepreneurship Centers.
 Address health care and mobility issues to cover other fronts of the city.
 Establish a model to replace obsolete technological resources, to sustain different strategies.
 Develop an inclusion model with infrastructure which includes software and hardware for communities with
special needs (physical limitations).
3. Description and Characteristics
For the past four years, the Mayor’s Office of Medellin has generated digital inclusion by intervening
educational, entrepreneurship and cultural communities – and the population at large - through its “Medellín
Digital” program. By providing the citizens more than 200 settings to access the Internet, and more than
141,000 users registered in the websites which were visited more than 12 million times, the “Medellín Digital”
program has turned into a model applied in different cities of Colombia.
The events that stood out in 2010 involve the XI Iberic American Meeting of Digital Cities (XI Encuentro
Iberoamericano de Ciudades Digitales)1, the consolidation and enhancement of the appropriation strategy in
Education through DiverTIC2, and the Teachers Educational Route (Ruta de Formación Docente)3, as well as
awards and acknowledgements granted to the Program, and the creation of ciudad@medellin.co.
Indeed, the Program’s impacts have focused on four aspects: Education, Entrepreneurship, Government, and
Culture.
EDUCATION http://www.medellin.edu.co
 The Mayor’s Office of Medellin has equipped a total of 171 educational institutions through the
Connectivity pillar of Medellín Digital.
Appropriation:
 171 educational institutions intervened by the ICT use and appropriation process.
 Of the 171 institutions, 90 incorporate activities in their PEI (Institutional Educational Project) and in their
PMI (Institutional Improvement Plan), which determine the use of ICT in the four school managements.
1
http://www.ciudadesdigitales2010.com
2
http://www.medellin.edu.co/sites/Educativo/Estudiantes/DiverTIC/Paginas/default.aspx
3
http://www.medellin.edu.co/sites/Educativo/Docentes/Noticias/Paginas/RutadeFormacionDocenteTICenMedellin.aspx

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 Of the 171 institutions, 124 have Open Classrooms arranged for the community.
 Arrangements were made with the directors of the institutions to open spaces to train the community. This
led to 8,054 persons benefited from free training courses on Government and Entrepreneurship.
 In the year 2010, a total of 361,562 persons have used the Open Classrooms and libraries of the
Educational Institution for free.
 A total of 1,457 teachers were trained in ICT’s (Teacher Training Route on ICT Appropriation).
 A total of 4,950 active projects have been made on the Thinkquest platform of Oracle.
 There are 50 projects registered in Thinkquest for the international competition of 2011.
Contents:
 The “Colombia en Línea” Award nominated, for the second time, the Educational Website under the Virtual
Education category, as one of the three best educational sites of Colombia.
 The Educational Website has received more than 12,500,000 visits since its creation, turning it into one of
the most visited sites.
 About 93,100 registered users, including students, teachers and the community at large. During 2010, an
average of 2,400 users registered per month.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP http://www.culturaemedellin.gov.co
Appropriation:
 10,805 entrepreneurs used the tools installed at the CEDEZO’s (Zonal Business Development Centers).
 More than 1,000 persons were trained under the Digital Literacy Plan for Entrepreneurs (PADE), and
1,023 on the On-line Entrepreneurs strategy.
 2,186 users of “Conéctate”, the appropriation model of the CEDEZO’s which builds ties and benefits
entrepreneurs with small-business persons on ICT’s (Information and Communication Technologies).
Contents:
 The site has been visited by more than 1,080,000 people since its creation.
 More than 22,750 registered users.
 Arrangement, coordination and operation of the “Tagme Up” event in which technology-based
business ideas are presented for two days during the XI Iberic American Meeting of Digital Cities.
The website of “Ruta n” is part of the Medellín Digital network with which Innovation is part of content
production:
 “Ruta n” website: http://www.rutanmedellin.org
 More than 37,500 visits to the website since its creation, and more than 800 new users are part of the
network of websites of Medellín Digital (an average of 160 users per month).
GOVERNMENT http://www.medellin.gov.co
Connectivity:
 Intervention of 10 Governments websites, for a total of 25 government sites intervened by the Program.
Three or six portable computers were installed on stands in these places where the community can carry
out on-line proceedings or consultations.

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Appropriation:
 The Digital Circular (Circular Digital)4 visited more than 12,000 kilometers of Medellin, covering 100% of
the communes of the city. Brief trainings were made among 30,500 citizens on the use of ICT’s and e-
government services.
 Trainings on the use of ICT’s and on-line proceedings among the community close to the Government
Sites, with the participation of 1,255 persons.
CULTURE http://www.medellincultura.gov.co
 The Culture website was part of the organizers of the third Iberic American Congress of Culture, leading
the Digital Congress strategy and the creation and design of the official site, managing the registration
process, producing contents and mobilization through social networks.
 More than 217,000 visits of the website since its creation, and more than 3,220 new users added to the
network of websites of “Medellín Digital”.
In addition, on cultural matters, Medellín Digital has the Network of Libraries website:
http://www.reddebibliotecas.org.co
 More than 3,668,000 visits of the website since its creation, and about 18,300 users registered (an
average of 490 users a month).
The primary characteristics of the Program are: digital inclusion, closing the digital gap in the community,
developing contents for specific audiences, all through the websites of Education http://www.medellin.edu.co,
Entrepreneurship http://www.culturaemedellin.gov.co, Culture http://www.medellincultura.gov.co, Network of
Libraries http://www.reddebibliotecas.org.co, and Ruta N (information and business center)
http://www.rutanmedellin.org.
The Appropriation strategy is developed with the community through different initiatives that enhance the
effective use of technological resources, community’s free access to technological resources, furnishing,
installing and equipping public spaces with computers and telecommunications equipment.
In short, to improve the quality of life of the citizens of Medellin by granting access to services in the different
settings that the Program provides with its intervention strategies.
4. Organisation
 List/Describe your LL’s most important “actors” (e.g. LL owners, investors, sponsors, partners, user-
categories, networks etc
UNE (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones) http://www.une.com.co, the Secretariats of Education, Planning,
Culture, and Administrative Services of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin http://www.medellin.gov.co, Fundación
EPM http://fundacionepm.org.co, MINTIC (Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies)
http://www.mintic.gov.co, ACHIET http://www1.ahciet.net/, Fundación Territorios del Mañana http://territories-
of-tomorrow.org Telemedellín http://www.telemedellin.tv, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
http://www.upb.edu.co, Fundación País del Conocimiento http://www.paisdelconocimiento.org/, ACI
(International Cooperation Agency) http://www.acimedellin.org, Ruta n http://www.rutanmedellin.org,
Universidad Eafit http://www.eafit.edu.co, Telecentros http://www.telecentros.org, and Corporación Makaia
http://www.makaia.org
4
http://www.medellindigital.gov.co/ciudadanodigital/Paginas/circular_digital.aspx

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 List/Describe the main organizational entities (functions/roles etc). Include organization scheme (drawing)
at will.
The Mayor’s Office of Medellin (“Medellín Digital” is a program of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin, which leads it
through the Municipal Development Plan); UNE (Telecommunications business which makes the largest
contributions for the Program’s operation).
The Mayor’s Office of Medellin establishes “Medellín Digital” as an official program.
Fundación EPM (this Foundation is owned by EPM -Empresas Públicas de Medellín- an organization that
provides public utilities in Medellin and in most of the Department of Antioquia): Manages the resources of the
“Medellín Digital” program.
 Describe to what extent your LL is active and collaborates in national and/or international contexts
In the local context, the “Medellín Digital” Program aids to improve the quality of life of the citizens.
In the national context, the Program has turned into a model worth copying in the digital territories that several
governor’s and mayor’s offices of Colombia have, implemented with the support of UNE Telecomunicaciones.
In the international context, the Program has been granted several awards in different settings:
http://www.medellindigital.gov.co/reconocimientos
 Describe how your LL is constituted and governed, and how decisions are made at the strategic level
“Medellín Digital” is a program of the Mayor’s Office of Medellin which operates with contributions of UNE
Empresa de Telecomunicaciones and of the Secretariats of Education, Culture, Administrative Services, and
Planning. The Program is managed by Fundación EPM and coordinated by a directive council and a technical
committee which consists of representatives of the above mentioned organizations. There are 40 persons that
work at the office of “Medellín Digital” on different matters: Contents, Public Communication, Connectivity and
Infrastructure, and Appropriation.
The strategies are designed by the Program through the management, coordinators and leaders of each Pillar
and in accordance with the interventions which gather the efforts made with different Secretariats. For
instance: In terms of Education, the Program works hand-in-hand with the Municipal Education Secretariat, for
Entrepreneurship, with the Planning Secretariat, and in Government, with the Administrative Services
Secretariat of the Mayor’s Office. Since the Program is of the Mayor’s Office, every secretariat and program is
susceptible of being incorporated to this encompassing strategy.
5. Openness
The strategy of “Medellín Digital” lies on providing connectivity and contents to offer citizens free access to
technology.
One of the primary strategies is to equip and commission the “Open Classrooms”, that is, classrooms with 21
computers connected to Internet. The Classrooms are created with the objective of being spaces open to the
community, to promote the participation and development of communities, enhancing the sound use of ICT’s.
Indeed, Open Classrooms are spaces that promote community access, participation and development,
providing new opportunities to access education, and to support entrepreneurship and build ties with the
services that the local and national government provides to the citizens. The Classrooms are open to students
during the school hours, and to serve, train and be used by different players/actors of the community, after
school hours arranged for the service and participation.

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The intervention at the Government Sites seeks to build ties, on-line, between the citizens and the
government. This enables the Program’s possibility to access, train and assist the citizens throughout 25
settings available for the population of Medellin, turning into points for ICT access and creation.
The Fundación EPM, through its “Punto Común” program which provides communities access to Internet
services in 11 locations of Medellin, gives equal access to educational and training-based activities.
The Telecenters, which are strategies for the vulnerable population to access ICT’s, are assisted by the
Secretariat of Social Development, and are initiatives of Social Entrepreneurship and Telecenters to aid ICT
access centers to work as sustainable social enterprises proper for communities.
There are 8 digital halls for entrepreneurs, which provide ICT training to enhance their business ideas. The
idea is to encourage competitiveness and use ICT’s to improve their businesses.
The contents of the six websites aforementioned are open to the public and seek to be proper and suit the
needs of the communities, facilitating content access, interactivity and generation. In turn, all contents are
licensed under Creative Commons, closely following the crowd sourcing and open innovation philosophy.
“Medellín Digital” program enhances the use of social networks as a key mechanism to communicate with
citizens. The Social Media plan was developed by the Program involving tools for the Web 2.0 in: Social
interaction (Facebook and Twitter), video (Vimeo, Youtube and Blip.TV), photography (Flickr), professional
contact (Linkedin) and geolocation (Foursquare), all backed by follow-up tools and structured within a system
that enables getting to know citizens and incorporating their suggestions to improve the Program; In short, it is
a strategy based on knowledge management that engages open innovation, two of the philosophical
foundations of our Social Media Strategy.
An important ally of the strategy to disclose “Medellín Digital” is Telemedellin, the city’s local TV channel.
Through Telemedellin, which engages in public services, the Program’s strategies are disclosed while citizens
are encouraged to use digital tools. In turn, Telemedellin promotes spaces to meet, illustrate and discuss
subjects relative to the Program. Moreover, thanks to Telemedellin, all of the Web 2.0 strategies have been
established and multi-media alliances have been built to generate a greater impact.
The Program is open to the cooperation and contributions of different partners and possible allies, and a public
model that seeks constant ties and to multiply the lessons learned in terms of access and inclusion.
6. Resources
“Medellín Digital” is an investment Program that is part of the public education of Medellin, which ensures its
sustainability, maintenance, Internet connection and technical support, indispensable for its operation.
In turn, the Program is backed, technically and through teams, by the Secretariats of Culture, Planning,
Education, and Administrative Services, which allows the Mayor’s Office constant assistance and to remain
operational in time. In turn, UNE, one of the three Telecommunications businesses of Colombia owned by the
city of Medellin, provides the Program operating and technical support through its Corporate Social
Responsibility program.

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“Medellin Digital” has 49 full-time employees, distributed as follows:
The Program generates the contents of 6
websites. The Appropriation pillar assists
more than 200 spaces, while the
Connectivity pillar provides technical
designs and assistance. In addition, public
communication is designed, social networks
are coordinated, and every administrative
aspect required is offered.
“Medellín Digital” has alliances with Oracle
Education, IBM, Close the Gap, ACHIET, Microsoft, with whom the Program participates to improve
educational processes and as an ally to enhance digital inclusion.
7. Users and Reality
As a Living Lab, “Medellín Digital” works with different audiences:
Public Educational Institutions are intervened
bearing in mind two goals. Firstly, during class
hours, to include students and build their ties with
ICT’s, and secondly, during after-class hours, to
provide a free service to the community living close
to the institutions, turning into an access and
training site.
“DiverTIC”: A strategy used to boost and enhance
the student’s use of ICT’s. The purpose is to
develop research, virtual and attitude training, and
to aid students’ appropriation of IT tools to conduct
educational and community-based projects which
evidence research work in classrooms and in
teams through arrangements. A total of 846
students have benefitted from this strategy.
Relative to the entrepreneurs, the CEDEZO’s (Zonal Business Development Centers) are Living Labs since
they provide access and training to enhance business ideas, to use interactive tools and to advance in ICT’s.
In turn, the intervention of Government sites gives way for the training and inclusion of citizens, emphasizing
on-line government procedures.
The more than 200 spaces intervened by the Program and its website platform serve the citizens with an
installed capacity that benefits their participation, knowledge and creation. This is used for strategies such as
the Participative Budget (“Presupuesto Participativo”) in which citizens of Medellin decide how to invest part of
the municipal budget in their community; Youth with Future (“Jóvenes con futuro”)5 provides education to
5
http://www.medellin.edu.co/sites/educativo/jovenesconfuturo/Paginas/inicio.aspx
Mayor’s Office of Medellin
Secretaríats
Education Administrative
Department of
Planning
Citizens Culture Administrative Services
IT Undersecretaiat
“Medellín Digital” Program
Open Classrooms
- LL
Educational
Institutions
Educational
Website
Entrepreneurship
Policy
Cedezo – LL
CulturaE and
Ruta n Websites
Cultural
Networks
Cultural
Centers – LL
Culture Website
Descentralized
Mayor’s Office
Government
Sites – LL
City Website
Education Planning
Culture Information
Technologies

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underpriviledged young adults, among others. The websites easily provide access to opportunities,
participations and debates.
8. Value
“Medellín Digital” provides the city of Medellin a series of living labs to generate contents based on formal
training to back specific skills, and based on informal knowledge based on experience. Both paths are logs
used which make it possible to think of managing knowledge to consolidate a model that enables the vision of
an ideal virtual social network built through ICT’s.
Open Classrooms (“Aulas Abiertas”) (backed by the Mayor’s Office of Medellin), Common Point (“Punto
común”) (a self-sustainable model charged a low rate), “Telecenters” (a model operated by communities
following the guidelines of the “Participative Budget” program as a self-management model), “Library Parks
(“Parques Biblioteca”) (operated by the Family Compensation Funds based in Medellin), are several of the
strategies of how consolidating spaces with connectivity and the appropriation of ICT’s can turn the dream - of
turning into a window of our communities which begin to be observed and to interact with the world – into
reality.
9. Direction and Plans for the Future
“Medellín Digital” has become in Colombia a model to expand the experience of the “Digital Territories”; a way
to build virtual participation and networks through the dynamics of social networks, and to consolidate
collaboration webs as a model to expand knowledge. Indeed, “Medellín Digital” seeks, beyond the connectivity
and appropriation of new technologies, to create Living Babs to consolidate Medellin as the International City
of Knowledge with global citizens stemming from innovation and participation.
Indeed, the Program faces a stage of political uncertainty since this year in Colombia are the elections of
mayors, governors and councils. The challenge is to protect our Program and declare it as a public policy,
guaranteeing its operation in time, and its continuity after the consolidation it has had during the past five
years.

Living Lab 'Medellín Digital'

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