Sabrina Sauer gave a lunch talk at UvA’s ILPS group on the 7th of October about how innovators can channel serendipity and unforeseen user ideas into ICT innovations using the living lab approach.

Abstract:

Living labs are public-private-civic partnerships that facilitate user-centered ICT development in daily life environments. In living labs, prospective technology users are invited to join R&D processes. As experts of their daily life settings, they are believed to bring new, serendipitous and unforeseen ideas to the table. Yet user inclusion in innovation is regarded with some ambivalence exactly because of the uncertain outcomes. Based on research into user involvement in living labs, this talk offers six suggestions on how to successfully embrace this uncertainty and discusses opportunities of living labs and serendipity in IR.