Here you'll find the latest articles, tensions, our thoughts, opinions, trends and other news.
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.
A group of students from Kristianstad University are now engineers with a specialization in IoT – and Smarta Byar played an important role. During spring the students spent time in Veberöd to work on their thesis. They constructed their own sensors which were then installed in Veberöd and connected to make readably via Veberöds Digital Twin. This was an important step to test their knowledge in a real environment. Veberöd also profits by gaining important knowledge which enables the village to become more sustainable.
Unga smarta byar (Young Smart Villages) is an association in Veberöd that was started to harness young people’s ideas about technology and sustainability. The membership is of course free of charge for all under age 25. During spring time members were able to try to design their own toys with help of a 3D printer. The association works broadly with sustainability – from analysing the water in Veberödsbacken to presenting at a European fair on rural development.
Early February 2021 marked the end of the big European policy project Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities (CCSC) and a conference was held for the occasion. There was an overwhelming interest in the digital conference from all corners of the world – Trans Europe Halles, the host organisation, registered 800 participants from 67 countries. This has been an important project for Lund and Skåne. Partly, because Trans Europe Halles, a cultural organisation seated in Lund, spearheaded the project. But also, because two out of seven European Urban Labs are located in Skåne. The aim consisted in finding new ways to collaborate between cultural operators and decision-makers. However, it was also about giving residents and cultural organisations the possibility to take part in shaping the future.
Currently, the work around the electrical road in Lund is an intense phase. For a while now an electrical rail, laying on top of the usual road, is part of Getingevägen on the way out of Lund. Now Evolution Road is working to complement the existing one with an inbuilt electrical rail on the other side of the road. Simultaneously, Innovation Skåne opened its registration for the electrical road conference on May 6th where interested people can listen to several of Sweden’s best experts on the topic.
In mid-march 2021 Lunds innovation week came to Veberöd where sensors were set up with the intention to connect sensor data and other data sources via multiple digital platforms. The idea is to use the system jointly to increasingly generate a solid base for future decisions. "This is an investment for the future to be able to rebuild the municipalities digital system to become the smart city and the smart society Lund” says Anders Trana, Future by Lund.
Future by Lund is doing a lot of projects that are being evaluated at the end – but sometimes there are already researchers involved all along in the project. Looking at the innovation platform from an outside perspective provides of course an extra dimension of quality but also adds to learnt lessons for the future. Barcamper was an accelerator for creative businesses facilitated by Future by Lund in the beginning of 2016. Recently, Professor Jonas Gabrielsson and Professor Diamanto Politis published a study about accelerators. Their work focusses on individual learning. They found out that peer learning is very important for a successful accelerator process.
