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Creating possibilities for employees to share ideas is perhaps not a new idea – but sometimes it’s not only about what you do but about how you make it interesting. Lund city got the chance to build Idébanken (the bank of ideas) with the help of Kraftringen’s experiences and system. The result is a transparent, digital idea box with a low threshold for employees. Four departments used the bank of ideas and around 160 ideas have been registered.
Not only people in smart cities can benefit from sensors – the technology can also be of great importance for cows in a pasture in Veberöd’s outskirts. The company Smarta Byar has experimented with sensors that ring an alarm when the cows’ water trough is empty. This has also given insights into cow’s water drinking habits.
A beech tree stood for over 150 years on Katedralskolan's yard until its successor has been planted in December 2019. The new tree is already historic − not only because it is an important symbol for the school but also because it is the first large tree that the City of Lund has chosen to monitor by looking at the moisture levels with the help of sensors dug near the tree’s roots. Monitoring trees is possible via a new sensor technology that has been developed in Lund. It is part of our large IoT project Smart Public Environments (Smarta Offentliga Miljöer/SOM).
A brand-new business area – that can definitely be seen as a good project result! When the municipally owned company Kraftringen became a partner in Future by Lund's Smarta Offentliga Miljöer (Smart Public Environments/ SOM) project they surely didn’t predict to take care of Lund’s sensor communication, the LoRa network – but that is exactly what happened. Now, anyone who needs to communicate with LoRa sensors can easily do so without the need to build or operate an independent infrastructure. Opportunities to connect sensors with the help of Kraftringen are on the rise. Recently, Eslöv and Lomma have also received similar networks.
Future by Lund’s project Smart Public Environments consists of more than twenty sub-projects. One partner that is involved in almost all of them is Sensative. Sensative’s IoT-platform Yggio receives and reports sensor data to different networks. Mats Pettersson, CEO at Sensative, explains how Sensative got involved in the project thanks to Future by Lund’s initiative. The participation became crucial. Sensatives platform for buildings has changed to be a platform for smart cities. Now, Sensative is working with a large number of cities.
Lyngby shares some of the advantages that came from working with GIID, an analysis framework that helps innovation areas in becoming Innovation Districts and that has been applied in cities such as Philadelphia, Toronto, Dublin and Milan to name a few. Lyngby’s innovation system underwent a sound analysis in which its unique strengths were uncovered, e.g. sustainable mobility and Retail Tech. The results stress the importance of collaboration and helped Science City Lyngby to develop a common five-year strategy while establishing a common innovation language among its stakeholders.
One ambition of the project Smarta Offentliga Miljöer (Smart public environments) was to teach high school students about sensors and IoT. Now, the teacher Ulf Jonsson and his technology students from the Hedda Andersson High School will work with a sensor project. Their sensors will soon provide them with data about the air, temperature and more. And hopefully, some students interest is sparked to develop the next generations technology and services in the process.
In the future around 4000 people will live and work in Brunnshög. The vision is to create a sustainable district. To get there, the municipality and publicly owned companies (i.e. Kraftringen, LKF) actively create possibilities for innovation. Read about the sustainable solutions that already exist and what the stakeholders do to bring in more of them in the future!
Streets with more interaction, biking and walking space, platforms that highlight attractive travel alternatives and small robots that take online deliveries – these are some of the potential solutions discussed during the kickoff of Klimatsmart Mobilitet 2030 (Climate Smart Mobility 2030). The initiative is a collaboration between Viable Cities and Drive Sweden to improve the work with climate neutral mobility in cities and benefit from the strengths of each other’s innovation programs.
How is it to work with a mobility project when society looks completely different from what it used to when the project was planned? The ongoing pandemic and the close-downs that resulted from it led to more people working from home while others take the car to the office and less people use public transport. That has, of course, an impact on the project. It is difficult to test some of the new ideas such as, for example, a carpool service, village busses and busses that would have taken village residents to shops or pubs. Participants of the Mobility Forum Webinar in March 2021 could brainstorm about which changes will last and how to make sure that positive changes remain.
In Brunnshög, houses are being built that integrate innovations and explore future ways of living in different manners. Real estate owners that could be seen as competitors work partly together to create a digital platform. This is a unique collaboration with the potential to increase the contact between inhabitants, the municipality, businesses, associations and real estate owners. LKF already tests the first version of its living platform in Xplorion. Midroc follows during summer with the construction start of their housing project Life. We asked Midroc, Serneke and LKF how they look at e their special collaboration.
On Getingevägen, Evolution Road and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) are running tests to charge driving electric vehicles via an integrated rail on the road. Elonroad, the company that is behind the technology, just received 22 million SEK from, among others, Bring and starts testing its technology in Helsingborgs harbour: ”It has become a total ketchup effect”, says Elonroads CEO Karin Ebbinghaus.
Additive manufacturing and the space industry may sound like an advanced technology that doesn’t regard normal people but the truth is: it does! Space technology and additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, can be key to make life on earth both easier and more sustainable. Thanks to this technology less material needs to be used, shorter delivery times are expected while it also helps providing better healthcare. This and other advantages were presented during the Space Technology and Additive Manufacturing webinar in May 2021, hosted by Space Node South.
An overbooked event, important questions in the chat and many new contacts on LinkedIn are the outcomes of a webinar about the project book, presented by AFRY and Öresundsbron, facilitated by Future by Lund. The project book is AFRYS name for a collection of requirements and standardisations which an industry, a real estate company or a public service can individually put together to keep an overview over current rules. With the help of a project book a shared view can be created within an organisation and with its suppliers. The communication eases when systems and people talk to each other with the effect of simplifying, improving and reducing costs. This, in return, can lead to more sustainability.
The Interreg project Mobilitet på tvärs (Cross Mobility) created a mobility forum to increase its visibility but also to incite more collaboration in the field of mobility among actors from Greater Copenhagen. An exhibition place is being built on Scheelevägen in Lund. And an upside to the pandemic is that there also exists a virtual and interactive exhibition which makes the project even more accessible. The launch happened during a webinar and combined workshop where participants got to try the projects own computer game which takes place in the exhibition space!
How can an organisation work strategically with managing and developing an innovation portfolio? OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) held a webinar and a workshop introducing their innovation facet model which creates more clarity and structure when working with an innovation portfolio. Future by Lund and the Swedish innovation programme Viable Cities were examples of what the work looks like once it is applied.
Lund is an important hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. Currently, Lund’s innovation ecosystem is being analysed to give an overview and point out future avenues. Having everything a bike ride away as well as resources for innovators and entrepreneurs and a support system are some of the advantages. Yet the work of Jasna Pocek and Christin Scheller from the Sten K. Johnson Centre for Entrepreneurship, also show that increased coordination can boost the ecosystem.
Future by Lund invited all interested actors to a webinar and workshop about Lund's innovation ecosystem . The discussion is led in the context of Lunds innovation ecosystem assessment to uncover strengths and unused potentials. Working together shall help to make the current innovation ecosystem even better. And it will make it easier for Lund to position itself regionally, nationally and internationally.
Big cities like Barcelona, Singapore, Amsterdam and San Fransisco but also northern cities such as Ålborg, Oslo and Göteborg – all are working to become smart and sustainable. The community of Veberöd, situated in the eastern part of Lunds municipality, follows a similar vein yet does a bit different work. Jan Malmgren, the founder of Smarta Byar (Smart Villages), analyses what smart technology can do to increase well-being and social sustainability in a smaller community. His hope is that the work in Veberöd can even contribute to giving big cities village vibes.
Veberöd was once home to a brick factory and the many houses made of beautiful red clay still bears witness to this period. Recently, the local resource became important again when Smarta byar (Smart Villages) started to work with 3D printers that can print products according to a digital description. In Veberöds offices tests are now run to 3D-print lampshades made out of clay.
