Swot Analysis Of Living Lab

Strengths

The living lab is a practical approach to implementing open and user innovation, making user ideas and prototypes available to an industrial partnership for further development. A living lab facilitates synergies among different types of users and software providers to create new products and services to support the development of new businesses and to sustain the quality of life of user communities.

The open approach of a living lab facilitates collaboration processes, fostering technology transfer from research laboratories to companies through the participation of users identifying innovative uses for existing solutions.

Weaknesses

Creating a living lab requires long-term funding. Moreover, the effectiveness of a living lab

Adding to this, there is strong political support at all levels for this kind of open innovation initiative and there are very active networks supporting the collaboration of different stakeholders to create living labs, such as ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs).

Threats

There is no widespread understanding of the living lab concept, making it difficult to implement benchmarking initiatives at research and practitioner levels. It is also difficult to demonstrate the long-term value of a living lab for businesses, user communities, and territories.

1.6.Real Life Examples

Sekhukhune Living Lab

A living Lab in South Africa, led by SAP in collaboration with CSIR/Meraka and other local partners, is focused on working with local micro-entrepreneurs.

The innovation process involved more than 30 end users who ran Spaza shops—informal convenience shops usually run from home—or were infopreneurs. The living lab has been in existence since 2006 and continues to date. It has helped launch four lines of IT services, including collaborative procurement and logistics, collaborative stock management and e-commerce tools, collaborative knowledge-sharing tools, and spatial analysis support

Practices and Goals

In its most basic form, a hackathon is an intense, multiday event devoted to rapid software production. Hackathon organizers invite programmers, designers, and others with relevant skills to spend one to three days addressing an issue by programming and creating prototypes. Organizers offer a space, power, wireless Internet, and often food. Participants bring their computers, their production skills, and their undivided attention. Hackathons usually happen at night, on weekends, or during conferences—times away from routine obligations to family, managers, or long-term plans.

In recent years, companies, NGOs, universities, and even government agencies have taken up hackathons as a means to recruit volunteer labor, generate interest in social or technological platforms, and use participants to explore possible futures for a host organization. While early open-source hackathons often focused on improving, repairing, and maintaining shared infrastructures, the hackathons have also grown to cultivate speculation about technological