Apollon Final Report
APOLLON Project Summary 1 Objectives and Set-Up................................................................................................. 2 2 Methodology and Tools ............................................................................................. 7 3 Homecare and Independent Living Experiment ............................................ 15 4 Energy Efficiency Experiment .............................................................................. 19 5 eManufacturing Experiment ................................................................................. 21 6 eParticipation and Social Media Experiment ................................................. 23 7 APOLLON pilot experiments: Lessons Learned .............................................. 26 8 Dissemination Activities ........................................................................................ 29 9 Sustainability ............................................................................................................. 34 9.1 9.2 9.3
Community and thematic networks .........................................................................34 Apollon Marketplace ......................................................................................................36 Apollon Knowledge Centre ..........................................................................................37
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Business Impacts .................................................................................................... 39
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APOLLON Success Stories .................................................................................... 44
11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4
New product Lines ........................................................................................................45 New Business Partnerships .......................................................................................45 New Mergers and Acquisitions.................................................................................45 New Spin Offs and Markets ........................................................................................45
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1 Objectives and Set-Up The APOLLON project aimed at demonstrating the positive impacts of cross-border domain-specific Living Lab networks, by setting up an advanced pilot composed of 4 thematically focused European-wide Living Lab experiments. In the experiments, SMEs are enabled to take part in cross-border Living Lab experiments beyond their home markets, and are supported by large industrial companies, academic centres and other stakeholders. The pilot aims at the sharing and harmonisation of Living Lab approaches and platforms between networks of exemplary European Living Labs, and the subsequent evaluation and exchange of results on a European and even worldwide level. The pioneering approach of Living Labs is to improve the innovation process by establishing business-citizens-government partnerships that enable users to participate in R&D at an early stage. European Living Labs are at the forefront of defining and putting into practice this new approach within the context of their local ecosystem. Currently, Europe-wide federation and networking between Living Labs is primarily aimed at harmonising best practices for setting up and conducting individual Living Lab research. In addition, Living Labs are collaborating across Europe at an individual project level. It is commonly thought that strongly increased cross-border Living Lab collaboration would potentially yield huge added value for Europe, as it enables firms, most particularly SMEs, to participate in domain-specific innovation ecosystems at a European scale, without losing sight of local circumstances and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, the next step in Living Lab networking is to pilot a more intensive, permanent and scalable collaboration, resulting in methodologies, tools and sustainable organisational structures for cross-border domainspecific Living Lab networks. The APOLLON project has answered to the call of the European ICT-PSP work programme to pilot and share best practices across Living Labs involving SMEs as key user- and provider-participants. APOLLON addresses four major domains in which ICT products and services innovation may benefit most from cross-border Living Lab networking. These are: (1) Homecare and Independent Living, (2) Energy Efficiency, (3) eManufacturing and (4) eParticipation and Social Media. In each of these domains, innovation is crucially dependent upon good knowledge of / embedding in local ecosystems on the one hand, and the ability to scale up to a European level on the other hand. Also, in each of these domains a set of dynamic projects and initiatives connected to lead markets, as well as a number of prominent Living Labs, industrial and SME stakeholders, can be identified that have a clear expressed need for scaling up through cross-border networking. Moreover, cross-border Living Lab networking in these domains responded to a range of national and European policy priorities. In each of these domains, real-life experiments were specifically designed to pilot and validate that cross-border domain-specific collaboration between Living Labs leads to measurable improvements in ICT product and service innovation, that it brings significant added value to SMEs including micro entrepreneurs, and that it leads to sustainable networks strengthening the European innovation fabric. Furthermore, each experiment had a complementary focus on specific harmonisation and networking aspects, i.e. a common ecosystem, a common benchmark framework, a common technology platform, and a common integration framework. The APOLLON general framework for piloting a cross-border domain-specific Living Lab network is depicted below.
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APOLLON general framework
Therefore, the activities of the project were situated on two tightly interconnected levels featured throughout the project. The ground level is the so-called ‘vertical’ level, i.e. the level of the Homecare and Independent Living, Energy Efficiency, eManufacturing and eParticipation and Social Media domains. Here, the focus is on validating the added value of a cross-border Living Lab network to deliver a domain-specific breakthrough and to engage business stakeholders (especially SMEs), end-users as well as public stakeholders in innovation at a European scale. In each of these pilots a specific use case was investigated, i.e.: -
Homecare and Independent Living: Remote Gateway and sensor-based systems Energy Efficiency: Research benchmark for user empowerment eManufacturing: An Integration and service platform eParticipation and Social Media: Integration framework of different services
The upper level is the so-called ‘horizontal’ level, where common methodologies and tools for cross-border Living Lab networking are being set up, tested and validated, and where work on governance and business models as well as European and worldwide transfer and dissemination will ensure a scalable and sustainable outcome. As mentioned earlier, the vertical experiments will each have a complementary focus on specific cross-border harmonisation and networking aspects, i.e. on building a common ecosystem, a common benchmark framework, using a common technology platform, and creating a common integration framework. This will result in:
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Apollon Final Report 1. A common eco-system model (Homecare and Independent Living experiment) In the first experiment an existing solution which is piloted in a local Living Lab will be transferred to one other Living Lab belonging to the network. The focus within this approach is to determine what kind of ecosystem, value network and common approach needs to be in place to conduct cross-border pilots (in the domain of Homecare and Independent Living) and to what extent it helps to do this faster, easier and more efficiently. This model will be applied to two Independent Living Services applications. 2. A common benchmark framework (Energy Efficiency experiment) This experiment will develop a common benchmark framework that will be deployed in all Living Labs taking part in the Energy Efficiency experiment. The main focus here is to assess the scalability of the Living Lab network, its services, and the comparability of research data within cross-border projects. This model will set benchmark criteria for a well-functioning energy Living Lab service delivery and will provide a clear model of network efficiencies related to a shared platform of Living Lab services. This model will e.g. be applied in the energy efficiency domain to assess the impact of smart-metering on user behaviour. 3. A common technology platform (eManufacturing experiment) In this experiment a common technology platform will be introduced and used by each of the domain specific Living labs. The objective of this approach is not only to see to what extent the use of such a common platform facilitates the transfer of projects between Living Labs but also to investigate whether this stimulates new forms of collaboration between different partners. The experiment will install and adapt a research prototype called RWIP with additional integration logic and services capability that will be used in the three participating Living Labs. 4. An integration framework (eParticipation and Social Media experiment) In this experiment we will transfer and integrate several locally tested applications into each of the different Living Labs that are active in the network. By deploying the integrated solution in all of the Living Labs we can test more accurately the advantages, best practices and limitations (on an organisational, technical and research level) of cross-border activities within the network. In this experiment there will be an exchange and integration of different local projects between all participating Living Labs.
The APOLLON target outcomes were to deliver concrete results and guidelines in terms of building common ecosystems and Living Lab networks, common benchmark and impact assessment frameworks, using common technology platforms, and creating common integration methodologies. At the end of the project the following goals need to be achieved: 1. A set of validated methodologies to set up and conduct cross-border Living Lab pilot networks 2. A recommended toolset for facilitating cross-border research 3. Set up of European thematic Living Lab networks 4. A framework and practical guidelines for involving SMEs 5. Impact assessment of the specific added value in terms of results as well as operational efficiencies of the cross-border approach 6. Recommendations and action plans for viable, sustainable and scalable roll-outs to further domains and sectors
In sum, the APOLLON Objectives and Set-up can be summarised as follows:
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APOLLON Objectives and Set-Up
Related to the design and set-up of the APOLLON pilot experiments, it also needs to be highlighted that we chose different ways of cross-border activities in each of the experiments. The focus of complementarity between the four pilot models implemented in the vertical experiments is depicted below. In the Homecare and Independent Living experiments, two SME remote gateway and sensorbased systems that were respectively transferred to another national context and market. As the Health sector is strongly determined by local value-chains and regulations, the four Living Labs involved had to first investigate the required eco-system and approach for setting-up cross-border experiments. This was necessary in order to determine a common approach and define the required roles and stakeholders for such cross-border Homecare and Independent Living experiment. Subsequently, the two local systems were to be piloted in the cross-border Living Labs using this approach. In the evaluation of the experiments, the main focus was on the assessment of these requirements, in order to determine how a common eco-system may benefit cross-border Living Lab research in the domain of Homecare and Independent Living. During the project, we were able to add a third experiment, which is reported on below.
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Complementarity between the four use cases within APOLLON
In the Energy Efficiency experiments, the challenges in terms of Energy Efficiency which the European Union is currently facing, were focused upon. To identify and address these key challenges, an ICT-based transformation of the energy sector is needed both in production and consumption. Knowing that heating, cooling and lighting of buildings account for more than 40% of European energy consumption, the Energy Efficiency use case focused on the stimulation of behavioural changes by providing real-time updates on energy consumption through Smart meters. This requires a cross-border large scale demonstration approach. Therefore the Energy Efficiency vertical experiment clustered four running local Living Lab projects in four countries dealing with Energy efficiency in general and Smart metering in particular. Each of these projects was independently investigating how smart metering technology can be used in the most efficient way and creates behavioural change. The goal was to validate the outcomes of these projects on a broader scale by using a common research benchmark and, by doing so, enhance the scalability of Living Lab research. The thematic objective of the eManufacturing vertical experiment was to improve the innovation lifecycle for SMEs in the manufacturing supply chain. For this three main challenges needed to be addressed. Firstly, there is need for a stronger integration on the operational and management level. For example, a more tight integration between the board room and the shop floor is a fundamental challenge in the manufacturing domain. Secondly, in terms of Interoperability there is a need for collaboration frameworks in order to facilitate ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report seamless exchange of information between suppliers, subcontractors and consumers. Finally, on the level of innovation itself there is, together with the development of suitable policies, a need for both producers and consumers to address sustainability requirements for the products they are manufacturing and using. Therefore the vertical experiment on eManufacturing clustered three Living Labs within the automotive sector in three different countries. Through the application of an Integration and Service platform that can act as a collaborative platform, this experiment wanted to assess how and to what extent such a platform, through which new services can be developed and evaluated, can address the challenges mentioned above. The eParticipation and Social Media experiment focused on user empowerment, which have always been an important objective for governments. The rise of so-called Web2.0 applications and services has contributed to this objective by significantly lowering the thresholds for users. Also, new types of technologies like 3D media and RFID offer complementary opportunities for citizens to participate in various kinds of (community) activities. But often such eParticipation applications and services are developed for and within a specific, local context. Promoting citizens’ participation to innovative eMedia services on a European scale and at the early phases of the designing process can help existing projects to reach a European audience. But such an approach is challenged by issues concerning interoperability, regulation and contextualization, which need to be addressed. Therefore the objective of the eParticipation and Social Media vertical experiment was to develop a framework, addressing these challenges for integrating different independent Living Lab experiments. The eParticipation and Social Media vertical experiment clustered three running local Living Lab projects in three countries, in which social media are being used to stimulate and facilitate the participation of citizens. The experiment focused on interworking and integration of the fragmented solutions being piloted across Europe. Therefore, the experiment assessed to what extent an integration framework dealing with the issues of interoperability, regulation and contextualization can facilitate cross-border research between different stakeholders as well as to what extent this approach can be used to scale-up existing projects and to explore new markets.
2 Methodology and Tools The first result of the APOLLON vertical and horizontal activities is a set of methods, tools and guidelines enabling sustainable collaboration for research, development, innovation and market development in settings of cross-border living lab networks, including: • Guidelines, methods and tools for collaboration among the partners of a cross border living labs network, addressing the different challenges covered in the domain specific pilot experiments. • A platform for methodology support, offered through the “Knowledge Centre” (http://knowledgecenter.openlivinglabs.eu/). This portal contains a repository of recommended tools, guidelines and practices. We have ensured that this will be continued after the lifetime of APOLLON, through collaboration with the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC). The specific cross border aspects of setting up, operating and managing living labs networks and cross border aspects of innovation and market creation arise because of the existence of differences, i.e.: •
Differences in cultures and practices of human and organizational collaboration, and related aspects of decision making, design traditions etc. which affects processes of collaborative innovation and market creation, and collaboration in general, and requires
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Differences in business ecosystems or value networks: different actor roles, responsibilities, organizations, which requires finding appropriate partners and ensuring that roles and responsibilities are met.
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Different local and national rules and regulations, e.g. the existence of different regulatory and competition frameworks in healthcare and energy sectors across countries, or different frameworks for IPR and contracting, which requires the modification or adaptation of these frameworks.
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Differences in technical systems, requiring interoperability, standards and local adaptation of systems to user environments.
The existence of these differences encourages us to think more fundamentally about methods and guidelines to overcome such differences. As the table below illustrates, these methods and guidelines can be of a very different nature. Overcoming cross-border issues to connect and interoperate in Cross border issues cross border living labs networks Different cultures and This is relevant where different living labs are working together for practices of humans example on joint development and testing. Here we need to address the behavior and understanding between people and the alignment and organizations of work processes and project management. Different business This is relevant where living labs work together and also where ecosystems and value technologies are transferred into another market. Success conditions of adopting technology solutions must be understood and besides networks technical adaptations, in new markets the roles and responsibilities of actors should be fulfilled. Different regulatory Such different regulatory systems may hinder the transfer of systems and rules technology solutions to another market. Technology solutions must be adapted and be adaptable to the local market conditions. Different technical Different applications and platforms may need to interoperate to systems and enable seamless collaboration across boundaries. Technologies, systems or services may need specific adaptations and interfaces to infrastructure be useful in another market. Differences in cross-border environments and how to overcome them
A first element to be highlighted in the APOLLON methodology is working with scenarios for cross-border Living Lab projects. Within APOLLON, scenarios are not considered in the usual way of describing a possible, often extreme, future situation under uncertainty, for the purpose of stretching our minds to generate new solutions. Rather, APOLLON scenarios represent high-level storyline description of the actions, situations and processes that together constitute the creation of the cross-border living lab and its networking and collaboration in action. Elaborating the scenario has the role to clarify the methodology requirements. The figure below provides the initial APOLLON scenario at the level of “actions”. This scenario illustrates a storyline sequence of actions including business opportunity identification, contacting living labs, matchmaking with cross-border living labs, project scoping, stakeholder identification and agreement finding, project management, market introduction analysis, and evaluation.
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Initial cross-border living lab scenario
This basic scenario has adapted and more elaborated versions for each of the four pilot environments. We have used a visualization tool (Windows Office Visio) as a graphical tool to develop scenarios. This can be of use in the development stage of pilots and in the methodology development process itself, as the figure below demonstrate.
Graphical representation of a scenario
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More detailed graphical representation of a scenario
Secondly, there is the methodology framework developed within APOLLON. We distinguish different purposes of these methods, tools and guidelines, that each have been developed, gathered, described systematically and validated in the pilots: 1. Support the creation phase (preparation, setting up, planning) of the cross-border network. The creation includes preparation and planning of the living labs network until it can be launched. The APOLLON methods are Business plan for a cross border living labs network, Cross border living lab network development plan, Detailed cross border living lab network planning, Business opportunity identification and analysis, Partner search and selection, Business model design for cross border networks, IP based business models for open living labs networks, Consortium contract agreement for collaboration in a living labs network, Profiling of living labs and SMEs for finding partners, IPR handling and knowledge base, and Cross-Border Living Lab Partner Contracting. 2. Support the general operation of the cross border living lab network, when this network is set in place. Methods and tools are required that will support the research, development, innovation and market creation activities within the network. APOLLON has covered: General framework for conducting RDI in cross border settings, Management of a network of cross border living labs, Project plan development for a cross-border living lab network, Planning of innovation projects within a cross border living lab network, Project management tools and guidelines, Collaboration tools in cross border living labs networks, and Performance analysis of a living labs network using KPIs. 3. Resolve interoperability challenges specific for pilot contexts. Within APOLLON these challenges address the use of common elements across the cross-border network. These common elements include 1. ecosystems, 2. data benchmarks, 3. platforms, 3. service frameworks. Pilot contexts differ in terms of e.g. stakeholders, their objectives, the actual innovation. APOLLON distinguishes four pilots characterized by four distinct challenges ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report to be addressed within a pilot. These are: Common ecosystems: facilitating transfer of technologies; Common benchmarking of data facilitating adoption of technology solutions; Common technology platform to facilitate collaboration for service innovation; and Common integration framework to enable user participation in service innovation. 4. Resolve specific problems or issues. Besides the key challenges, many specific issues are to be addressed that require specific method, tools and solutions or practices. APOLLON has systematically covered: User interface translation, Value network analysis, User data benchmarking model, Investigating user behavior transformation, Test storylines for user communication, Knowledge transfer across pilots, Policy and regulations database, Remote guided living labs tour by using webcam, Trading platform for DMI agents, Software license agreement, Living lab contracting frameworks, Community reporting tool, Data protection template, and Sub-license agreement. 5. Address overarching issues in cross border networking of living labs. Here we have pointed to the general, “foundational” theories and methodologies that are useful to guide the strategy for creation of living labs networks for open and user driven innovation, more specifically: Research framework for designing and evaluating living labs networks, Action research framework for implementation of the living lab network, Cross border living lab network pilot development and execution, Socio-technical change, actor network theory and related frameworks, Living lab methodologies for open and user driven innovation, and Creating and operating virtual organizations. The methods, tools and guidelines also include collaboration guidelines, of interest for actors and organizations. Because this is a “horizontal” issue this is not reflected in one specific category but included in the categories defined above. Still, the aspect of collaboration merits specific attention. One important aspect related to the guidelines, methods and tools is that they have been implemented, validated, and refined in a continuous iterative process between the ‘horizontal’ methodology WP and the ‘vertical’ pilot WPs. The pilots in the various thematic domains conducted their experiments following the same high-level schedule (depicted below) but with very different emphasis and contexts. Therefore, already in the initial phases of the project it became apparent that there was need for harmonization and methodological support for the experiments. The application of the common Research Framework as proposed by the Methodology WP has assisted the pilots in structuring their activities in the experiments and putting them into a process oriented frame. This also has assisted communications with the various partners in various experiments and locations, and in turn allowed the project to collect validation data in pre-defined categories. The common Research Framework was developed also in order to establish a common language and terminology for the project as a whole.
Steps within the APOLLON thematic experiments
APOLLON implemented an iterative process for all of this between the methodology WP (WP1) and the vertical WPs, whereby WP1 representatives acted as “liaisons” to support the ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report four pilot experiments in applying the methodology framework and supporting them in the various stages of the pilot experiments. This is depicted in the figure below.
Interaction between liaisons & experiments (WPx)
From the results of the validation process conducted by WP 1 throughout the course of APOLLON and its four pilots, the initially proposed APOLLON Methodology Framework was updated, refined and confirmed. This methodology consisted of three main pillars: 1. The four phases, 2. The Scenario approach, 3. The Research framework. So, to summarise:
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Apollon Final Report ..the 4-phases, that describe a Living Lab managing domain networks from the set-up, over the execution to its vision/purpose …
… the scenario approach, that helps guiding the collaboration for an experiment along a storyboard, embracing all stakeholders and – after having followed it once – acts as a best practice for the next project …
… the Research Framework, that enforces deeply thinking about the objectives of your research or your project; by applying it on a regular base either helps you correct the project or adapt/extend your objectives …..
… and in addition, the ‘vertically’ identified challenges, which are socio-economic challenges…
… can be added to the validated methods and tools, following the structuring from more general to more specific,….
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‌ and thus the final APOLLON Methodology Framework can be visualized as follows.
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Visualization of APOLLON Methodology framework Finally, in order to ensure sustainability and wide uptake of these results, a number of methods, tools and guidelines as proposed and developed within the APOLLON project have now been made available for a wide audience through the Knowledge Center (http://knowledgecenter.openlivinglabs.eu).
3 Homecare and Independent Living Experiment In APOLLON, the cross-border activities of WP2 within the domain of Homecare and Independent Living were focussed on the transfer of existing technologies from one context to another. During this transfer we looked specifically to what extent a common eco-system, present in each of the locations, would foster the cross-border pilots. In order to do so, we organised our activities on the following three specific cross-border experiments: • Belgium – Finland: Within this pilot the Belgium SME Televic, which has developed a Homecare supporting communication technology – deployed in their home market, transferred their system, called Xtramira® to the Finnish market. The service provides a video and audio communication between client and the homecare providing organization. This was taken up by the Finnish Living Lab, which had identified local actors that were in need of such service. A lot of effort was put into the preparations and contextualisation of the service.
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Netherlands – Spain: In this experiment the ADL system is an intelligent home automation application for the elderly of the Dutch SME Innoviting was transferred to Spain. The system that uses small wireless sensors capable of recognizing the behaviour of residents’ daily activities, was successfully transferred and tested within different Spanish households. Here also the local Living Lab, IAV, played a crucial role in the set-up and deployment of the technology.
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Netherlands – Belgium: Next to the predefined experiments, an additional experiment was executed, as a result of the network activities of the project. This experiment transferred the I Can Help service, a social emergency service, developed by Logica Netherlands, a large enterprise, to the Belgium market. Again it was mainly the local Living Lab, IBBT, which facilitated this process by searching for the appropriate partners and establishing of the eco-system. As this experiment was conducted at the end of the APOLLON project we were able to integrate and by so evaluate the defined APOLLON approach as well as the different tools and methods used in the previous experiments.
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Based on these experiments we were able to: • Define and compare the different Homecare and Independent Living Lab approaches. • Develop a transfer strategy and working methods • Validate the used methods and tools for cross-border pilots in the Homecare and Independent Living network • Map the different contextual factors, including the regulatory and legal issues as well as the service/product value-chain and eco-systems • Evaluate to what extent the network can be used for exploring new and emerging markets within the Homecare and Independent Living. The lessons learned with regard to cross-border pilots and networks in the domain of the Homecare and Independent Living were situated on various levels: • Tools and methods: filling in the overall APOLLON approach and contributing with some specific methods – such as the requirement analysis • Collaboration and eco-system: identifying key-roles and activities within the ecosystem as well as the challenges for the Living Lab as key-actor in the process • Domain-specific issues: Listing different domain specific elements that are important within cross-border pilots in the domain of Homecare and Independent Living such as privacy, liability, ethics, requirements-checklists, safety, maturity, reliability (testing!), costs, trust, rules & regulations and access to end-users. The three experiments organized in this pilot enabled the comparison of different living lab approaches and to develop a transfer strategy and working methods. One of the main findings is the importance of carefully establishing an ecosystem for living labs innovation within the health and wellbeing pilot. One of the conclusions from the pilot is that establishing a common, fixed ecosystem to benefit cross border collaboration of living labs was not feasible, due to the fact that different healthcare systems exist in different countries. However, the pilots also indicated that organizing simplified forms of such ecosystems built around actors and their roles and responsibilities is a necessary condition. In the set-up phase of the crossborder living labs collaboration project it is important to define the added value within the ecosystem. In case this added value is insufficiently clear and explicit, actors are less motivated to engage in collaboration.
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Generic actors in a living lab active in homecare & independent living
The pilot results also show that the Living Lab has clearly been identified as a neutral and valuable partner to facilitate the innovation process from start to end. On the other hand this role – and in particular the ambition to play a more active role in the deployment of the experiments - is challenged as it is expected that the living labs also act as “ambassador� of the service that is experimented, which is often beyond what living labs are offering as a service. In terms of methodology to support the setting up and operation of the living labs network, the four phases (connect, plan and engage, support and govern, manage and track) proved to be very useful stepping stones. Already across the three experiments within this vertical pilot the implementation was different, which demonstrates the need for contextualization of methods and tools. More specific methods and tools that were found valuable, included requirements analysis, value analysis, and contextualization and friendly-user testing of a service. A final conclusion from this pilot is that each of the different actors involved (Living Labs, SMEs, Large Enterprises) benefited from the pilot in terms of gaining insights on how crossborder pilots work and the implications for the own organization. Living Labs enriched their current portfolio with new processes, tools and methods and gained valuable knowledge. SMEs were able to adjust their technology and service to enter foreign markets, as well as their business model and market positioning, but also participation in the pilot resulted in much more effort on domains not clearly foreseen. Large enterprises gained insights in benefits of the living lab, identified new market prospects and were able to explore of new business models.
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4 Energy Efficiency Experiment The Energy Efficiency experiment was set up in four countries (Finland, Sweden, Netherlands and Portugal), involving four Living Lab environments. The thematic objective of the energy experiment was to stimulate behavioural changes among people, by providing real-time updates on energy consumption through smart meters as well as testing new smart metering solutions and creating new business models for SMEs based on the finding of these actions.
All the four countries had a different basis for energy consumption because of the different climate conditions and the borders set by these conditions for energy efficiency. Legal entities as well as national energy players set demands to mitigate energy consumption as well as lowering/shifting of consumption peaks. The living lab settings were in most part similar except for the Finland pilot that is located in a higher voltage office building when in the other living labs the pilot is of low-voltage metering point; namely private homes. The cross border piloting focused on knowledge sharing and common research benchmarks related to user behaviour transformation among WP3 partners. From the four different living labs few key issues have risen above others in terms of user involvement and notification. The most flagrant issues related to energy proved to be the way in which the users are notified of their energy consumption and therefore are incorporated in the process of energy savings, and also to how to keep them engaged long-term. End users are most likely to change their
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Apollon Final Report consumption habits to greener ones if they have a good knowledge on what their usage has been before, what this usage means in terms of minutes and euros, as well as have clear objectives on what the consumption could be and with what means this could be achieved. Users demonstrate an interest at the start of ICT use and interaction, but interest tends to decrease in time if users are not engaged and challenge on regular intervals. Hence, energy efficiency information workshops are essential to raise user awareness, provided messaging and language are appropriate to the audience involved. With this in mind cross border activities are vital in sense of fresh ideas and common methodologies for interpreting the user behaviour changes. Real time data is an added value if the presentation of the data is adequate to the audience, namely baseline and real time consumption displays. Real time measurement has gathered new players to the field of energy efficiency that lack the motivation or knowhow to create integratable solutions into the emerging industry of smart metering vendors, yet instead all players want to create a full range solution providing full package from measurements into costumer displays. This leads to a large number of players in the market and creates interface challenges as solutions tend to be compatible with only their own software. Conventional metering vendors or established energy management software providers can co-operate quite easily on national level because of old partnerships but new SMEs lack the knowledge or network of partners so they could focus on their core knowledge part of the solution. The challenge for SME’s is to take the advantage of being in permanent touch with up-to-date technologies, from different companies in the field of energy metering, with partners from different European countries, sharing ideas and forming business alliances. The most obvious benefit is for the Living Lab community and network to be able to actively disseminate Apollon experiences and pilot results, at the local, national and European levels. The greatest challenge is the absence of a single uniform European Energy service market for consumers. There are different industry legacies, regulatory environments, standards and supporting instruments for each individual European country. This emphasizes the prime importance of an instrument like to bring obstacles and challenges in this emergent lead market to the attention of the European Commission. Within the APOLLON project international cooperation has shown benefits from exchange of experiences and lessons learnt from the partners, allowing the results of an initiative developed elsewhere to be appropriated and worked upon in other projects. This allows a convergence of resources, leveraging European-wide available assets (scientific excellence, technologies, methodologies, tools, experimental facilities, Living Labs, user communities) and avoids double work while achieving the same results. The concrete results of the co-operation related to user behaviour transformation methods and monitoring can be seen in the good results in energy savings of the four living lab pilots: Helsinki: Average 9% (increase of energy usage 4,0% to decrease of 24,1%) Luleü: Average 9% (5-12% decrease of energy usage) Amsterdam: Average 6% (4-8% decrease of energy usage) Lisbon: Average 15% (9-20% decrease of energy usage) In order to establish a common language and terminology and an easy and effective communication with the various partners within the Living Lab experiments a common research framework was applied to the experiments. This framework has assisted the experiments in structuring the activities and putting them into a process oriented frame. The research framework has given all the LLs the possibility to evaluate their activities and to
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Apollon Final Report view the business prospects for cooperation between themselves and partners in the energy domain. It also creates the possibility to exchange best practices between Living Labs and creates an understanding of the measurable data in the experiments. We have studied the best ways to collect data, to show the measurement data to end users and to implement a user behaviour methodology to be used in the different Living Labs.
5 eManufacturing Experiment The eManufacturing experiment focused on technical implementation of several Future Manufacturing use cases based on using a SAP Research middleware platform prototype. Due to the economic crisis onboarding of Hungarian SMEs by the local Living Lab proved not feasible; instead in a dual cross-border setting of Portugal and Germany, a very close collaboration was set up and organized. For SMEs, Living Labs as well as the Large Enterprise involved there was a clear value added of participating in the project, which was fundamental for the cross-border project collaboration. The experiments entailed the usage of a middleware platform prototype for plant energy monitoring and management (Germany), tracking and tracing of tools and material in a factory environment (Germany), energy consumption monitoring (Portugal), and asset viewing and management (Portugal).
Various means for collaboration, proper project management and technology training and transfer were applied and validated, both from the pilot team’s own selection and based on recommendations from WP1. A new means for building trust has been identified, when faceto-face meetings are not possible: the webcam tour combined with online application sharing lays a foundation for building trust in the technology capabilities of the partner, which is essential in the manufacturing environment. And the possibility to being exposed through such a means after having successfully completed a project with the Future Factory in Germany offers a valuable means of communication in addition for any SME abroad. With respect to IPR issues, especially with the supporting partners, who were not bound by the APOLLON consortium agreement, contracts like “Software Development Licensing ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report Agreement” and “Test and evaluation agreement” were generated, which could be of relevance for similar project activities, where e.g. one company wants to work on prototypes prior to product release. A surprise was that the technical cross-border project went through very well. The conclusion was, that in IT and B2B environment the language is mostly English, the terminology somehow universal, the processes from idea or concept to product via testing as well, so time could be taken to address the human factors and not make them become a hurdle. Technology transfer was executed across borders. Creation of new products and service offerings, which was meant to be done as co-activity between partners in Hungary and Portugal for both customers in Portugal and Hungary, could not be done, thus happened locally. The ongoing collaboration on the pilot and especially the difficulties faced in Hungary raised the awareness for means to better support finding the right partners abroad to start a new business and to find new customers. Whereas in the Portuguese case the local Living Lab proved to be the “trusted hub” for partner and customer identification, the question was how to support partner selection, business initiation and collaboration outside the current ecosystem. This resulted in the new concept of “APOLLON Marketplace” platform initiated by SAP Research. The Apollon Collaboration Platform is based on the Open Source Prototype “USDL Marketplace” developed within the Theseus Texo project. It consumes and exposes services described in the Unified Service Description language (USDL), a platform-neutral language for describing business details of a service, such as pricing, service-levels, and legal aspects in a standardized way. This and the central concept of abstract services, which is used to cluster services that comply with a number of predefined description properties, lead to enhancements in comparability and exchangeability of services. The main purpose of such a marketplace is to support service providers and service consumers in the matchmaking phase. For the APOLLON project, a customized USDL Marketplace was set up as an Internet-based platform to the domain networks of Living Labs. Service providers (in particular SMEs) often act within tight budget boundaries, especially for investments in market research, for business development or for promotion/marketing. Thus the APOLLON Collaboration Platform offers mechanisms that support trading services across borders in new target markets. In particular when a service provider need to find early adopters and future customers for new products in a market it is not familiar with. The APOLLON Collaboration Platform offers help to moderate the processes of finding the right partners, users and future customers to incubate business collaboration. The components which were used for the Apollon Platform are depicted in the diagram below. Notice that the terms “Service” and “Solution” are used interchangeable here. As illustrated in the architecture diagram, the Matchmaking component is about discovering and matching offering and demand. It provides functionality to browse the catalogue and search for services as well as shopping cart functionality for services with a fixed price or for services that require an RFQ process in advance. The shopping cart is directly connected to the RFQ&Ordering component which handles everything related to RFQ processing, bargaining, ordering, and delivery management. For authentication and authorization of users, the corresponding component is used. It redirects platform users after their login directly to an individual view on the collaboration platform associated with their role on the system (service consumer, service provider and administrator). While the service consumer’s individual view focuses on matchmaking functions and RFQ/Order processing, the provider’s
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Apollon Final Report view on the system mainly targets on service creation and service editing features which are provided by the Administration component. In addition to these service administration features, a user with the Administrator role has amongst others the possibility to maintain service categories, administrate users, and change texts on the user interface.
Apollon Collaboration Platform Architecture The APOLLON platform addresses the issue how partners can be brought together that are offering and seeking any kind of services that are ready for transnational projects regardless at which location they are based. Interestingly, this Marketplace platform concept matches very well the thematic domain network and represents a potentially attractive business model triggering and supporting transnational business opportunities for SMEs in Europe. Based on the results from the eManufacturing experiment, the whole project started to use this in order to ensure sustainability of the APOLLON thematic networks and cross-border services (see below).
6 eParticipation and Social Media Experiment This experiment focused on integrating software components and technologies into eMedia and eParticipation applications. A primary question was to test how integrated eMedia technologies can encourage community activities and eParticipation and what are the advantages, best practices and limitations of cross-border activities within the Living Lab network. The experiment was designed to cluster three running local Living Lab projects in three countries, in which social media are being used to stimulate and facilitate the participation of citizens: the Issy-les-Moulineaux Medialand in France, the Manchester Digital Living Lab in the United Kingdom and the Antwerp Museum of Modern Art in Belgium. In this experiment specific technologies and related services within each Living Lab were selected (3D technologies from French SMEs Navidis and Virdual, social media and community reporters programs from the UK NGO People’s Voice Media, context aware mobile application from the Belgian start-up AirGraffiti now named MuseUS), with the objective to adapt and integrate them with each other.
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Apollon Final Report In France, the Digital Fort Use Case experiment tested an interactive multimedia trail on the History of the Fort of Issy, based on the reconstruction of the fort in 3D, augmented reality, geolocation, community reporting, QR codes and cross-media. Winning 3 national awards, the interactive trail has become a permanent cultural service offered by the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux, accounting for more than 3,000 users. The Belgian pilot tested the impact and added value of a mobile 3D game application on youngsters’ museum perceptions and experience in a museum setting. The experiment indicated that youngsters overall experienced visiting a museum, rather than playing a game. This is an encouraging result for applications focusing on in-situ audience engagement with cultural heritage. The application is currently in beta testing. Release on the market (AppStore) is planned for 2012. The English experiment worked with Manchester Art Gallery to evaluate the Decoding Art project, which allows visitors and citizens to obtain information about on-street public art works by scanning QR codes on their mobile phones. The testing sessions took place in April 2011 and were a success as they allowed Gallery staff to use Living Labs approaches to improving public services and engaging with citizens. The ideas from the sessions informed further development of the project. It also provided a baseline evaluation to use for comparison when IBBT's MuseUs application which was tested in the Gallery in November 2011. Finally, the second French experiment replicated the Antwerp and Manchester scenarios, testing the MuseUs application at the French Museum of Playing Cards within the “Alice in playing cards’ land” exhibition. The purpose was to test people’s reactions to the use of mobile games when visiting an exhibition. We focused on the remediation of a number of issues that were the result of the MuseUs trials in Manchester (e.g. lack of progress indication in the application) and tested the software on tablet computers instead of Smartphones.
The experiment’s conclusions are on different levels: contextual factors, ecosystems, technical and organisational interoperability, lead market opportunities, and collaboration. Regarding contextual factors, the pilot evaluation highlighted the role of access to eMedia and ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report Mobile technology, as well as language barriers and copyright issues. For example, working with partners with different skills implies a pedagogical approach of assisting them in the use of new technologies. Also, future projects involving the usage of social media for sharing user generated content will need to be aware of copyright and IPR regulations. The piloting of eMedia solutions raised the question of IPR for solutions developed in combining two or more existing technologies. For future projects, IPR and related licenses (Copyright, Creative Commons) will need to be defined at the beginning of the project in order to let each partner decide what to put in the project and understand what they take out. Living Labs could assume a role to support hybrid models such as Creative Commons allowing copyright holders to share part of the knowledge generated in the project with a wider community. These factors have partly also been discussed in other pilots (e.g. Homecare and assisted living) and demonstrate that we need to be aware of human factors as well as business and regulatory conditions. The pilot has identified some models of how to address the issue of maintaining a close connection with local ecosystems, by setting up forms of customer relations management. Much like the homecare pilot, SMEs working with living labs should define clear goals and clear value added of working with living labs on technical innovation. The pilot was also confronted with the issue of enlarging the ecosystem of involved partners., a situation which is expected to be common in this type of cross-border projects. The local living lab had an important role in this process as it succeeded in finding the required partner, thus demonstrating the way SMEs can benefit from working with living labs. However, additional measures must be taken to really get the new partners involved, such as making a budget reservation for new partners or for additional development costs, and encouraging the participation of SMEs that are able to quickly adapt to shifts in the scenario and are willing to develop solutions such as APIs that facilitate the integration with third party applications. The pilot also faced interoperability issues: technical interoperability of partner’s technologies and harmonization of partners’ goals. Technical interoperability was achieved through collaboration of SMEs along the definition of the pilot scenario. This involved ad-hoc development to achieve a sufficient level of integration and to be useful to explore the interest of investing further resources to achieve a seamless integration. Future projects will need to evaluate to which extent partner’s technology is interoperable requiring SMEs to provide detailed technology descriptions before starting a pilot and planning early technology assessment meetings among technology partners. SMEs should be encouraged to develop APIs as this facilitates communication with third party technology providers. Regarding lead market opportunities, APOLLON enabled partners to explore foreign markets and some partners benefited from APOLLON to redefine their business model and identify new business targets. Several partners are engaged in new European-level projects due to APOLLON. The pilot also focused on new business models for social media-based applications that require almost no investment by cultural institutions. Practical bottlenecks such as lack of travelling costs hindered SMEs to engage in meetings with clients, putting Living Labs in the position of SMEs “sales representative”. This again points to the crucial role of living labs – also in other pilots – and to the new set of skills and competencies these Living Labs should acquire compared with existing living labs in order to carry out their role in cross-border settings. As concerns collaboration processes in the cross-border setting, the matchmaking between SMEs and living labs is to be considered as a fundamental step determining the success of collaboration between SMEs and living labs. When the Living Lab ecosystem is not adapted to the SMEs, opportunities are lost. The pilot presents interesting examples of mismatches which invite us to pay due attention to the problem of living labs skills and competences.
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Apollon Final Report Also, SME solutions should be sufficiently flexible to enable the integration in the living lab ecosystem; agile approaches to prototyping and testing should be encouraged while working with a living lab. One of the conclusions of this pilot is that, for SMEs looking for internationalisation or market expansion, Living Labs should not fulfil the role of “salesman” however could act as single point of contact getting in touch with local living lab ecosystems. Much like other pilots (energy efficiency, homecare and assisted living) the eParticipation and Social Media pilot stresses the importance of knowledge transfer to address partner’s needs and based on partners’ skills. It is proposed to set up a platform facilitating knowledge exchange and reusing existing methods and tools, and to pay more attention to training sessions as a means to transfer knowledge among partners and to develop sustainable relations.
7 APOLLON pilot experiments: Lessons Learned All pilots have identified recommendations based on their pilot evaluations. The following summarizes and integrates a number of key recommendations targeting cross-border settings and facilitating the set-up and operation of cross-border living labs networks, i.e.: 1) Apply the phasing approach contextualized to the pilot environment. Most pilots applied the general phasing model (connect, plan and engage, support and govern, manage and track) to establish a framework for research and innovation in the pilot environment. The phasing model is found very valuable to guide experimentation but always needs contextualisation to the demands of the pilot. 2) The initial “connect” phase is critical but more attention is necessary. Due to that fact that the vertical pilots started after APOLLON was approved, less attention was paid to the “connect” phase. Important decisions are taken in this phase such as partner finding, consortium building and planning of the project. Selection of the right business partners includes discussing the requirements and agreeing on solutions. Some of the difficulties experienced in the pilots later on e.g. collaboration bottlenecks can be attributed to decisions made before the actual pilot started. 3) For successful transfer and adoption, take into account “soft issues”. Such issues include trust, privacy, liability, ethics, safety, and regulatory issues when transferring a technology. This recommendation especially stems from pilot work in Homecare and independent living. Transferring a technology implies issues of acceptance and adoption in other contexts; especially in healthcare this is a key issue. The eManufacturing pilot demonstrates that transparency, trust and an easy access to any type of information regardless if the SME is a service provider or a potential service consumer – is crucial to start running new business engagements. 4) Carefully build and maintain the living labs ecosystem. The Living Lab eco system ensures the required conditions for product or service co-development. Both Homecare and eParticipation and Social Media pilot have worked on building and maintaining the living labs ecosystem, including defining the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and partners. The roles, responsibilities, competencies and skills of living labs need specific attention as living labs fulfil a critical role in the ecosystem. Skills and competences upgrading will be necessary in many cases. The pilots demonstrate new demands to Living labs e.g. active mediating roles in the eParticipation and Social Media pilot. The eManufacturing pilot demands relying on the local Living Lab having the knowledge of and contacts to reliable local partners, having checked them before inviting them into a new business relation. 5) Define and agree on requirements at early stage. The eManufacturing pilot is an example where requirement findings is carried out in a relatively simple cross-border ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report project setting. More complex requirements finding processes can be found in the homecare and independent living pilot which has worked on methods supporting this process. The eParticipation and Social Media pilot recommends to Living Labs to be clear on capabilities and requirements of the product or service being tested, identify the target audience and adapt the product or service accordingly. 6) Address local adaptation and reliability of technologies as well as technology interoperability. Especially in cross border settings local testing of technologies and applications coming from elsewhere is highly important, as demonstrated by the pilots homecare, energy efficiency and eParticipation and Social Media. The Homecare pilot has elaborated a testing procedure. For eParticipation and Social Media, technical interoperability of partners’ technologies was a key issue. Close collaboration of SMEs in defining the pilot scenario is a key condition for success. SMEs should be prepared to open up and jointly evaluate technologies to find common solutions. They should be encouraged to develop APIs to facilitate third party technologies integration. 7) Address the product or service business model. Several pilots indicate that not just costs but the business model (including also the value proposition) for putting a product or service into the market is relevant. Business model issues play a role already in the early phase of cross-border projects. 8) Use low cost tools and processes to facilitate collaboration. All vertical pilots have worked with low cost communication and collaboration tools. "On-demand"-availability in order to immediately react to unexpected technical issues is often critical (e.g. for the eManufacturing pilot). Remarkably, shared collaboration workspaces have not been used much and probably some dedicated training is necessary to be offered by living labs, as part of project management procedures. It should be recommended to avoid fragmented use of tools and offer an open, common collaboration platform which has low cost tools integrated. 9) Define project planning and management procedures dedicated to cross-border settings. Explicit attention is paid to project planning, management procedures and skills in the homecare, eManufacturing and eParticipation and Social Media pilots. A sound cross-border project plan is a necessity, however it should be transparent and open for adaptation to new circumstances. As the eManufacturing pilot formulates, not just for the business side of a project but also for the technical aspects like the technology knowledge transfer, the use case implementation, the use case execution and support and maintenance - a clear structure of the cross border activities is a "must have". All means of good project management must be applied: clear roles and responsibilities, as well as agreed means and modes for communication, timelines, tracking and other issues, this helps to avoid project failures, wasting resources and disappointment. 10) Be aware of the potential need to modify the consortium composition. The eParticipation and Social Media pilot is a clear example of the need to add new partners during the pilot process. On the other hand the eManufacturing pilot had to facilitate the exit of an existing partner. So in general the consortium will change over time and early stage provisions must be made to facilitate changes in terms of budget, adaptation of IPR arrangements and other conditions. 11) Create cross-border thematic domain networks to support cross-border living labs networking. The role of WP6 together with vertical pilots has been to push development of thematic domain networks that act as wider networks bringing together living labs, SMEs and large enterprises, research institutes, authorities in a given domain. These networks establish a breeding ground of new cross-border initiatives and as a knowledgesharing environment. They bring together knowledge, insights, practices, methods and tools, skills and potential partners. They stimulate collaboration and offer services to living labs and SMEs. The spectrum of what domain specific Living Labs can cover in ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report order to bring SMEs faster to new markets includes a variety of services starting from governmental / legal related services up to straight technical services such as early prototyping - depending on the nature of the respective Living Lab. 12) Facilitate cross-border value creation. The SMEs - including all sub-categories from really small enterprises to mid-size enterprises - should be enabled to run trans-national businesses not just by getting the chance to trade their services to other countries via the platform but also by getting support from the Living Labs network into the direction of "to be made prepared" for establishing businesses in other countries and regions than their "own". 13) Leverage on the unique capabilities of a living labs environment of being a crossborder test bed. The pilots demonstrate the unique potential of small-scale experimentation and testing in a well-defined and “friendly� cross-border setting, before larger-scale roll-out. Such well-defined and friendly environments still can take different shapes such as the corporate living lab environment (as in Future Factory living lab) or project-based and temporary collaboration between existing living labs (eParticipation and Social Media, homecare pilots).
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8 Dissemination Activities Due to the large number of beneficiaries in the Apollon project, and the pro-active nature of their activities (pursuing cross-border business opportunities, iterating on Proof of Concepts and Business Models, finding new partners, etc…), Apollon has been widely disseminated as a project. In this table, you can find the main events in which Apollon has been disseminated as a project, whilst each partner has included Apollon in many smaller meetings and events regarding their experiment or service they were developing. APOLLON Activities Workshops & Events Generic Events
Domain workshops
Specific
M1-M6 (Nov 09-Apr 10)
M7-M12 (May 10-Oct 10)
M13-M18 (Nov 10-Apr 11)
M19-M24 (May 11-Oct 11)
M25-M30 (Nov 11-Apr 12)
April 14th, 2010 Living Lab, User Driven Open Innovation and Future Internet, Valencia
September 27-29, 2010 – ICT 2010, Brussels
December 13-17, 2010 – Future Internet conference week, Ghent
ICE Conference 21-23 June 2011
December 2011 – EsoCE-Net Industrial Forum, Rome
MANUFACTURING: January 2011 – Future Factory open days, Dresden
ENERGY: 4 May 2011 – Energy Thematic Domain Network, Lisbon
HEALTH: September 27-29, 2010 – ICT 2010, Brussels
MEDIA: February 2011 – Imagina 2011
Second Future Factory Webcam Tour 2011 – Dresden – June 15 2011 European workshop - "e-culture 2.0" Issy-les-Moulineaux - June 24, 2011
ENERGY: Smart People and Energy Efficiency – March 2011
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22 May 2012 - Smart citizens in smart cities and communities co-creating future Internet-enabled services – APOLLON Final Event Manufacturing: Future Factory Visitors Day, Dresden 4 Nov 2011 22 May 2012 – Parallel sessions at Smart citizens in smart cities and communities co-creating future Internet-enabled services (eHealth, Energy, Manufacturin, Media)
Apollon Final Report January 26th, 2010 – Smart Cities, Brussels
Other Events
June 21-23, 2010 – ICE 2010, Lugano June 20-23, 2010 – Bled Conference, Bled
December 6-7, ESoCE Industry Forum 2010 - User Driven Open Innovation For SMEs
24th Bled Conference 12-15 June 2011 Budapest, may 2011 - Future Internet conference week August/September 2011 – EnoLL Living Lab Summer School 2011: You Can Learn to Innovate through Living Labs 14th - 16th September 2011 - The PICNIC festival – Amsterdam 6th October 2011 Making Progress and Economic Enhancement a Reality for SMEs: New Approaches Towards RTDI Programmes, Brussels Committee of the Regions 5-6 October 2011 - Innovation Forum of Bouygues Immobilier (FIBI) 10-17 October FIMBACTE
International Workshops
Events
or
May 25-27, 2010 WCIT 2010 (Word Summit on ICT), Amsterdam Summer 2010 – Energy Efficiency, Brazil Autumn 2010 - Fablab International Conference 6 edition, Amsterdam
November 2010 LLiSA 2n international Living Lab conference, South Africa Pretoria
Information Material & Journal Publications
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2011
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Festival
Helsinki EBFR 2011 – 14-15 December – Co-creation of enterprise for problems worth solving Monaco 7-9 February - Imagina – The European 3D Simulation and Virtual Technology Event Turin 2-3 April – Living Lab Business Model Coaching and Best-practice Sharing Workshop
Apollon Final Report Dissemination material from Events and Workshops (to be made available after each event and workshop)
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• • •
Presentations Material for general purposes for Living Labs; Material for specific domains; Material for SMEs Videos and Pictures
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•
•
• Information Material
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•
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4 page “General Brochure”, vers1, M3 Guidelines and editing details for the 4 “Thematic Brochure” M6 eNewsletter, 1st issue on M6 APOLLON Standard Presentation M4
Journal Publications (see PLAN OF PUBLICATIONS, released on M6 and M15) Web Platform
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Publications and Materials on events (general and specific) APOLLON site four pilots update status presentations APOLLON Strategy, Methodoly and Exploitation publication Videos and Pictures “General Brochure”, vers2 1 page retro/verso “Thematic Brochure” per each thematic domain (4 in total) eNewsletter, 2nd issue on M12
Presentations • Material for general purposes for Living Labs; • Material for specific domains; • Material for SMEs • Videos and Pictures
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•
•
Scientific Publication set up and remind
Papers from the ICE Conference and other events
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1 thematic network brochure; 1 page recto/verso eNewsletter, 3rd issue on M18
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Presentations Material for general purposes for Living Labs; Material for specific domains; Material for SMEs Videos and Pictures
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Updated information material M24 eNewsletter, 4th issue on M24
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Presentations Material for general purposes for Living Labs; Material for specific domains; Material for SMEs Videos and Pictures
Updated information material M30 (General Presentation, flyers) eNewsletter, 5th issue on M30
Apollon Final Report APOLLON portal (continuous updating throughout the whole project duration)
Set-up M6
SME section (continuous updating throughout the whole project duration)
Set-up M6
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Downloadable Letter of Support and Declaration of Accession • Events and workshops • Information Material • Dissemination Material • APOLLON Strategy, Methodoly and Exploitation • APOLLON site update. What APOLLON offers to SMEs and supporting partners) Update the SME section portal: • Dedicated Events and Workshops • Papers for SME • Information Material • Dissemination Material • Business Opportunity Corner • Methodology and Exploitation
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Portal updates: • ENoLL Knowledge centre portal link • Thematic domain network community pages • Events and workshops • Information Material • Dissemination Material
Portal updates: • Events and workshops • Papers for general purposes for Living Labs and for specific domains • Information Material • Dissemination Material
Portal updates: • Events and workshops • Papers for general purposes for Living Labs and for specific domains • Information Material • Dissemination Material
Update the SME section portal: • SMEs Service window • APOLLON synergies with other projects • Open calls for SMEs • Information Material • Dissemination Material • Business Opportunity Corner
Update the SME section portal: • Papers for SME • Information Material • Dissemination Material • Business Opportunity Corner
Update the SME section portal: • Papers for SME • Information Material • Dissemination Material • Business Opportunity Corner
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Apollon Final Report Supporting and Associate Partners section (continuous updating throughout the whole project duration)
Partners Involvement Supporting Partners
Associate Partners
Set-up M6
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Updated list of “Current Supporting Partners” Updated list of “Current Associate Partners”
•
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M6) measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M6)
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Updated list of “Current Supporting Partners” Updated list of “Current Associate Partners”
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M18) measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M18)
• •
Updated list of Supporting Partners” Updated list of Associate Partners”
“Current
•
“Current
•
Updated list of “Current Supporting Partners” Updated list of “Current Associate Partners”
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M24)
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M30)
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M24)
measurements to assess the progress toward the achievement of the objectives (M30)
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9 Sustainability 9.1 Community and thematic networks In terms of dissemination and sustainability, the project has as overall objective to inform and network the relevant stakeholders in Europe (Living Labs, SMEs, large enterprises, government agencies) for each specific domain. The project had to ensure dissemination among Living Labs, public organisations, industry and SMEs on a European-wide and even global scale and to create sustainable networks of cross-border Living Labs in Europe, that together can address the common challenges in their specific domain, based on a solid governance model for thematic cross border networks of Living Labs. Building on a steadily growing number of APOLLON support partners (i.e. non-consortium members who signed a letter of support, indicating willingness to support the project goals and gain privileged access to networking and dissemination events) of 154 organisations (58 at the project kick-off; 89 at M12) in 23 countries, committing to one of the APOLLON vertical domains, a large amount of both generic as well as thematically specialised, and Living Lab-oriented as well as SME-oriented activities, an SME portal implemented on the APOLLON website, and the survey results of specific online surveys for each of those domains, the APOLLON thematic networks have been created.
Support Partners Government 2%
Industry 3%
University 10%
Living Lab 53%
SME 32%
APOLLON Support Partners These networks of Living Labs were then created based on the establishment of an effective dialog with the communities that represent the global ENoLL Open System namely LL-
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Apollon Final Report Domain Network on Wellbeing, Health, Inclusion; LL-Domain Network Energy & Environment; LL-Domain Network Media & Creativity. The process was performed with interaction between vertical work-packages (leveraging their experience in the pilots conducted during the project) and the activity of dissemination and coordination performed by WP6 as per the relations illustrated in the following paragraph. The whole process was designed to build Domain Living Lab Networks to responding to the following two basic functions: - Spread information and best cases (based on the experience of cross border collaboration experienced in the project); -
Offer cross-border Living Lab tests as-a-service (from a small number of Living Lab within the Domain Network identified by the process and before the official launch).
To this extent, and based on the interaction with different project work-packages, the Domain Living Lab networks were designed to operate on the following three levels: - 1st level – free SMEs access level, granting networking for cross border collaboration, first evaluation of SMEs need and expectations for operating in the domain; -
2nd level – access to Domain Network dedicated Services (i.e. consulting services) by accessing APOLLON Market place gateway (with services description, prices or quotations etc.);
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3rd level – establishment of specific collaboration for building projects and consortia partnerships.
The following schema graphically represents the principal architecture of the APOLLON Domain Living Lab Networks:
Architecture of APOLLON domain networks
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Apollon Final Report These three levels were described and clarified (in term of processes and business models) in the specific charters and in the overall business model for the Networks. The Domain Networks of Living Labs were also assigned: - A governance structure for the suitable activity of the Domain Networks; -
A Business Model (ensuring sustainability for each Domain network within ENoLL iVZW);
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Successive specific agreement(s) within ENoLL (for the concrete establishment and participation of Domain Network members).
The access to specific Domain Network services is granted by a dedicated platform where these services are described and accessible (based on detailed information and prices or request for quotation). This platform, the APOLLON Marketplace, is a demo customization of the APOLLON Collaborative Platform developed in the eManufacturing WP 4 (see also above). The installation of the APOLLON Market Platform showing one of the project resulted services is available from the screenshot below:
9.2 Apollon Marketplace
The APOLLON marketplace wants to offer an Internet-based platform to the domain networks of Living Labs - in its 1st stage to the domain networks of APOLLON, initially to the manufacturing experiment and then to the other three vertical domains. Service providers (in particular SMEs) often act within tight budget boundaries, especially for investments in market research, for business development or for promotion/marketing. Thus APOLLON project marketplace wants to offer mechanisms that support trading your services across ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report borders in new target markets, In particular when you need to find early adopters and future customers for new products/s in a market you are not familiar with, where you would need local partners who know the business environment. APOLLON project marketplace offers help to moderate the processes of finding the right partners, users and future customers to incubate business collaboration. The main focus of trading in the services industry is on electronic services (e.g. web services for electronic device integration, remote maintenance services) an Internet-based platform or marketplace may also cater for B2B services that require local/on-site interaction (e.g. consulting or set-up of systems). The APOLLON trading platform or marketplace can provide support for: - Describing a service from a technical and business oriented view; -
Describing and publishing the request for a service, help, support...
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Offering and selling software / modules via a web channel (web shop)
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Finding local partners providing relevant on-site interaction with a user/customer
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Finding market-compliant local technical components
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Feedback collection and publishing about a service
The marketplace is intended for Living Labs that wish to publish services and wish to collaborate across borders, but also for SMEs and large enterprises seeking innovation opportunities together with other businesses or Living Labs. This will ensure the liveliness and ultimate sustainability of the marketplace. Another factor ensuring the sustainability of the domain networks and the marketplace, is that they will be accessible through ENoLL website where the Domain Network section (transferred by APOLLON project) will be included. This platform is, along with the APOLLON Knowledge base and the APOLLON portal for SMEs involvement, among the chief results the project has prepared for transfer to ENoLL after conclusion of the project.
9.3 Apollon Knowledge Centre One of the main outcomes of the APOLLON project is the development of an APOLLON methodology. This is the major objective of the horizontal methodology work package. This methodology was created based on the current state of the art Living Lab research initiatives, and inputs from the vertical thematic experiments within APOLLON. The final methodology is expected to be presented as a framework with a set of tools and processes for any groups that wish to set up and conduct cross-border Living Lab networks. APOLLON methodology includes an end-to-end tool set for Living Lab networks including the relevant principles, concepts, tools, processes and role descriptions. Furthermore, the methodology is expected to define and describe the tangible and intangible measures required for effectively demonstrating the added value of a Living Lab network for various user groups. The Living Lab Knowledge Centre was initially set up by the Amsterdam Living Lab (www.amsterdamlivinglab.nl), which started in 2008 with the goal to help companies to test new products in a real user environment. The Knowledge Centre went on line under impulse of APOLLON partner Novay by mid 2010. Further development of the portal and its functionalities is co-financed through APOLLON. From its launch, a strong connection ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report existed towards Europe with other Living Lab initiatives. By end 2010, APOLLON therefore decided to host the living Lab Knowledge Center as part of the openlivinglabs.eu portal, the official site of ENoLL iVZW, the European Network of Living Labs. This, way, it is expected that the Knowledge Centre will remain firmly embedded in the Living Lab Community, and grow as user-based repository of best practices and methodologies. The Knowledge Center portal consists of several parts: •
Support: This part provides help in setting up and running a living lab project or network. Essentially it is here that APOLLON results in terms of methods, tools, guidelines have been made available. This part is structured according to the known phases Connect, Plan and Engage, Support and Govern, and Manage and Track.
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Learn: this part provides access to Living Lab methods, techniques, tools, sensors based on a search engine.
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Find: this part allows to find living labs, projects and partners according to specifications.
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Best practices: This part contains a number of good practices of living labs management which are expected to be useful for new initiatives. Topics for best practices are, e.g., management of intellectual property rights (IPR), licensing and other.
The Living Lab Knowledge Centre APOLLON to this date has contributed 23 concrete, validated tools and methods to the LLKC, and a range of additional methods and tools are being published on the platform in addition to those. LLKC Method, Tool, Guideline contributed by APOLLON 1.
Cross-border Living Lab Partner Contract Template
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Basic Contract Between Test Users and Living Lab
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Business Model design for Cross-Border Living Labs Networks
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Policies and Regulations Database
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Contacting and Profiling Platform on Knowledge Center
6.
Value Analysis
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Apollon Final Report 7.
Requirements Analysis
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Decision and Management Support Framework
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Project plan development for a Cross-Border Living Labs Network
10. Cross-border Knowledge Sharing 11. Observation Data Collection and Focus Groups 12. Collaboration and Communication Tools 13. Dedicated Project Meeting 14. Cross-border Application development Framework 15. Community Reporting Tool 16. Platform for Cross-Border Trading of Services 17. Remote Guided Living Labs Tour Using Webcam and Web Conferencing 18. Test Storyline for User Communication 19. Method for Designing Use Transformation Processes 20. Checklist to prepare for product or service introduction 21. Checklist to implement a use case in another environment 22. Customer Review Questionnaire 23. Expertise database
10 Business Impacts The business profile of an average SME involved in APOLLON is depicted below. Categories
Average
Number of SMEs
11
Years in operation
18
No. of Employees
90
Autonomicity
All
Turnover (2009)
6.055.382 €
Turnover (2010)
6.492.368 €
Turnover (2011)
7.783.660 €
YoY increase (2010)
7%
YoY increase (2011)
20%
Turnover/Emp (2010)
49.435 €
Turnover/Emp (2011)
52.353 €
In order to gauge the cross-border presence and its importance to the SME partners in APOLLON, efforts were made to understand their existing business model and dependence on international businesses and trade. Among the respondents, 64% have presence in international markets. This may seem already advanced, yet upon further research it was revealed that as of 2011 nearly 55% of SMEs are deriving only 0-5% of their annual revenues from international trade and businesses.
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Apollon Final Report
SME internationalization and revenues from internationalization activities [Y2011]
In order to investigate the impacts of APOLLON on international revenues generated by the SMEs, data from years 2008, 2011 and 2012 were analyzed for variations. Before APOLLON was initiated in Y2008, 64% of SMEs indicated a meager 0-5% dependence on international business and trade as a source of revenue. A small number of SMEs (9%) indicated 56-60% reliance on international businesses and trade for annual income. By the peak of their involvement in APOLLON, by Y2011, the original 64% of SMEs that indicated only 0-5% dependence on internationalization shrank to 46%. Also, the number of SMEs heavily exposed to international markets doubled from 9% in Y2008 to 18% in Y2011. From further interviews we learned that this gain can be largely attributed to the cross-border activities carried out the SME partners in APOLLON project.
International Revenue Distribution [Y2008]
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International Revenue Distribution [Y2011]
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Apollon Final Report Towards the end of APOLLON, the effect continues to grow significantly, as almost 73% of SME partners indicated their intentions/reliance over the international markets in 2012. The percentage of SMEs still cautious regarding venturing into foreign markets shrank further to 27%, this is one-third of the number recorded in Y2008.
International Revenue Distribution [Y2012]
In order to present an overview of impact on international revenues we cross compared all the individual responses for all the years (Y2008, Y2011, and Y2012). As indicated in Figure 4-4, the red quarter in the figure which represents 0-5% share of international revenues decreases as we move from Y2008 to Y2012. In the same time the green quarter of the figure categorically expands by nearly doubling its original share.
Overall Impact on International Revenues
Every firm adopts one or the other modes to venture into new markets, establish new business contacts etc. APOLLON as a platform provided a fresh start to these SME partners to reinvent their internationalization strategy and consolidate the existing international markets.
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Modes of Internationalization
It is clear that the congruence of APOLLON involvement and internationalisation for SMEs was no coincidence, because among several alternatives outlined by us, 45% of stakeholders preferred the APOLLON Network to Distributorship, Franchise and Export type models. APOLLON Network was considered complementary to the successful “business as usual” modes of internationalization like – Parent company presence, JV and International Offices. As a key metric for assessing impact of APOLLON on SME Partners, each of the partners were required to identify and evaluate the contributions made by APOLLON and its consortium. Among several key contributions made by APOLLON, nearly 70% of respondents valued the Testing and Piloting Experience as most crucial to them. Second most important contribution of APOLLON (59%) was equally attributed to the understanding strategy and improved vision of doing business abroad.
Contributions of APOLLON and Impact
Every partner in APOLLON had ample opportunity to work with local and cross border living labs. Nearly 91% of SMEs indicated their interaction with Living Labs as “satisfactory”. 73% of the partners recognized the importance of Living Labs as a critical component of their internationalization strategy.
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Apollon Final Report
APOLLON Living Lab Experience
Besides the SMEs, our evaluation revealed that also for the 4 large enterprises in APOLLON, using a cross-border thematic Living Lab network is a valuable experience.
Modes of Internationalization
As shown below, among several alternatives outlined by us, 50% of large enterprises preferred the APOLLON Network to Distributorship, Franchise and Export type models. APOLLON Network was considered complementary to the successful “business as usual” modes of internationalization like – Parent company presence, JV and International Offices. 50% of the corporate partners have concrete plans to exploit the business contacts, venturing opportunities and lesson learned while working with APOLLON partners across Europe.
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Post APOLLON Exploitation
Every partner in APOLLON had ample opportunity to work with local and cross border living labs. Thanks to the Living Labs active in APOLLON, all (100%) of the corporate partners indicated “satisfactory” experiences while working and interacting with the living. 50% of the partners noted the importance of Living Labs even as a critical component of their internationalization strategy.
APOLLON Living Lab Experience
Among the key recommendations, all the corporates agreed for the need for Living Labs to liaise between the corporate and SMEs active in cross-border activities.
11 APOLLON Success Stories Finally, the overall figures above can be further concretised through a number of case-based ‘APOLLON success stories’. These relate to the establishment of new product lines, new business partnerships, new mergers and acquisitions, and new spin-offs and markets. ICT PSP Project Reporting Template
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Apollon Final Report Together, they testify of the deep and positive impact that cross-border thematic Living Lab networks exert on SMEs, non-profits and large enterprises.
11.1 New product Lines During the period of 2009 to 2012, APOLLON partners (SMEs and Large Corporations) collaborated closely with each other to develop new product lines and features. Best example that demonstrates this inter-partner exchange of knowledge and technology is the QUBY case in the Netherlands, the Tunstall case in Finland and the Cloogy case (see under ISA, below). QUBY & Logica: Home Automation Europe (HAE), WP3 APOLLON partner specializing in Home Energy Management wanted to test and integrate their product QUBY with stakeholders in Energy and Home Automation Business. Logica used this opportunity to integrate their EV charging (CiMS) product with QUBY display technology to develop an Integrated Home Controlled EV Charging Model for their customers in the Netherlands. This new product now enables residential customers to charge their Electric Vehicles without overloading or offsetting their connection capacity. Tunstall Healthcare: Tunstall Healthcare worked as a supporting technology partner of the APOLLON Homecare Domain Network. Tunstall tested and evaluated its video presence technology and use cases to commercially roll out two products lines not just in the European Union, but across Tunstall’s footprint. Currently Tunstall has two initiatives in progress where video presence will be used. One focuses on Telehealth at a distance and the other focuses on Telecare with social inclusion.
11.2 New Business Partnerships SAP-Ydreams: As a consequence of APOLLON, working together in the Energy Monitoring and Asset Viewing use case a strategic business partnership was created between a Living Lab (Future Factory) in Germany and an SME (Ydreams) in Portugal. Using this partnership, Ydreams, took advantage from the provisioning of a software technology - the SAP Research MDI platform prototype and combined that with their knowledge and expertise to solutions that helped other SMEs such as Imeguisa with their demand for energy monitoring and CENI with their demand for an asset viewing solution to get the right and best product and created two new business partnerships.
11.3 New Mergers and Acquisitions INNOVITING: As a partner in APOLLON, INNOVITING participated in the Homecare and Independent living pilot where they successfully transferred their ADL sensor system to Spain. During this process an entire redesigned of the web application, lingual interface was changed. Thanks to the visibility provided by APOLLON and cross-border activities, the ADL system was acquired by LIVIND (Owned by Adesys and Bureauvijftig). Process Vision: Process Vision Oy has successfully piloted user-centric energy efficiency improvement concept in the Helsinki Living Lab. With the versatile online reporting and living lab oriented end-user commitment in the office building environment PVI reached remarkable results in saving energy, minimizing carbon and energy bills. During APOLLON PVI was able to work in 4-different sites, 4-different countries under 4-different regulatory environments that lead to an increased understanding of developing new businesses in larger BRIC markets. During the course of APOLLON, Herkules and Elis Holding acquired Process Vision in 2011.
11.4 New Spin Offs and Markets ISA: ISA extensively used the opportunities created by APOLLON cross-border Living Labs to interact directly our counterparts from Finland (APOLLON partner - Process Vision).
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Apollon Final Report Working towards a vision to venture in new international markets, ISA created a spinoff named ISA Sul America in São Paulo, Brazil. The enthusiasm and the business potential of Brazil for the Energy Efficiency knowledge and technology led ISA in Portugal to invite other SMEs in order to create a Living Lab embracing the complete value chain of the Energy Efficiency domain. The partnerships in this domain led to an initial number of 30 partners that created ISaLL (Intelligent Sensing and Smart Services Living Lab). Finally, the development of a new ISA product can be considered one of the success cases from Apollon Project. Cloogy is a household energy management solution that allows the monitoring and control of electrical appliances. For the creation of this new product – Cloogy – some lessons learned and new ideas were fundamental. The Apollon Lisbon pilot experience and the ideas exchanged between the activities made a decisive contribution in this creation process. People’s Voice Media: Working towards their goal to create a «Reuters of the community», PVM participated in the Manchester Pilot of APOLLON project as SME partner. Through their participation in APOLLON, PVM developed its flagship Social License Model® and have sold licenses to 15 organizations - 5 in the UK and 10 across Europe. Now, PVM is looking to develop their market in France (through APOLLON Partner - Issy Media), Italy, Spain, Turkey and Sweden.
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