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Researchers, start-up entrepreneurs and students were busy in the Stockholm CLC demo area

Gunnar Landgren, Stockholm Node Director summarised the first four years of activities

Anders Caspár, Ericsson Research, shared the industrial partner view on Collaborative Innovation

Graphical documentation by Karin Grönberg

Integrating students, researchers and business partners

The Stockholm Results Day in mid-November was held in conjunction with the Idea Challenge Internet of Things finals and a day of presentations of the activities in the innovation area Future Networking Solutions. Together this provided visitors with hands-on demos of research outcomes, contacts with supported startups and testimonials from industry partners, research community, students and new entrepreneurs.

What are the benefits from this integrated form of innovation collaboration for an industry partner?

The question was directed to keynote speaker Anders Caspár, Director of External Research Relations at Ericsson Research exemplified at the Results Day who gave a very positive exposé on how the outcome so far has been of great use and in which aspects the collaboration within EIT ICT Labs is different and complimentary to other EU projects that Ericsson isinvolved in.

A change greater than the Industrialisation

To start with Anders Caspár pointed out that in order to be able to meet the needs and requirements of the “Networked Society” - a change greater than the industrialisation - it is obvious that the networks need to increase their performance. As the number of people living in cities will also increase there are

several urban challenges to solve which require greater efficiency, productivity, collaboration, transparency of government, inclusion of citizens and improved environmental footprint.

The next generation networking solutions, 5G, will enable multi-domain performance and energy performance far beyond today’s limits. It will also be the foundation for efficiency in both industries and society. Many actors are involved in this development and cross sector collaboration is vital. EIT ICT Labs provides both the integration of education, research and innovation and a simpler and faster setup compared to e.g. traditional framework programs and co-funded programs involving member states.

Real business value and innovative talents to the market

As an example relevant to our businessthe EIT ICT Labs Action Line Future Networking Solutions (FNS) has already delivered 17 cases of technology transfers, three new products / services and numerous enhancements of existing ones. To date there have been 32 standards contributions, six open source SW releases, one startup, six patents, a number of top publications and the work of at least two ERC laureates. In addition, we have the benefits of securing future ICT competence and the creation of an environment that attracts top talents, innovators and entrepreneurs.

# In FNS 32 standards contributions, 17 cases of technology transfer/knowledge adoption, 6 patents etc.

# In 2014 234 enrolled MS students year 1, 171 enrolled MS students Year 2, 55 graduated students

To further provide the audience with a relevant background and overview of EIT ICT Labs activities, Gunnar Landgren, Stockholm Node Director shared a presentation highlighting the Stockholm profile in Education, Research and Business and also the results achieved to date in each of the strategic innovation areas and in the Educational programmes.

Running in its third year the Stockholm CLC now hosts close to 100 Master School students, a doubling in numbers each year. The first cohort is graduating and the current classes learn from the Alumni on how to interact with the local ecosystem and take the opportunities at hand, benefitting from the very hot tech startup scene in Stockholm.

Blended life demos and business development

The marketplace demos focused on the innovation areas Future Networking Solutions, Health & Wellbeing, Urban Life and Mobility and Smart Spaces and Education. Watch these sample video clips from the marketplace where you could try the Smart collaboration toolbox to meet virtually, in this case in Paris and share your presence with others. Another Smart Spaces solution, Semantic Lightning, gave a new experience of how the physical and digital world becomes more blended and provides new retail or communication solutions.

Besides the many more demos a number of startups coached by the local business development team presented their business ideas. Evothings Secure and Shortcut Labs that also took part in the Idea Challenge are already embedded with the research and student community at KTH and EIT ICT Labs. Furhat Robotics was also founded on research at KTH and is now being commercialized. Telcred is a more mature company with a background from SICS research while BioSync is a more recent outcome of research collaboration at SICS and within EIT ICT Labs. Biosync is also included in a joint seed funded research project- a result from the previous marketplace event at the EIT ICT Labs Stockholm Co-location Centre.

Read more about the Idea Challenge Internet of Things final: http://www.eitictlabs.eu/news-events/news/article/undagrid-wins-the-internet-of-things-idea-challenge-2014/#allView

The Stockholm Results Day and Idea Challenge finals were graphically documented by artist Karin Grönberg - see all details from presentations, demos, pitches and key messages:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eit_ictlabs/sets/72157649389756581

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