Tag Archive for: University of Lapland

5G and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem at the University of Lapland

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Author: Laura Ulatowski

The Arctic Centre, University of Lapland hosted as part of the EIT HEI SKills2Scale project, a peer learning event in Rovaniemi, Finland. The objective of the event was to share experiences and best practices in the fields of education, research, and innovation to foster inspiration among Higher Education Institution (HEI) administrators to explore new possibilities, opportunities, and paths to take to initiate innovation in their institutions.

To portray our project partners an accurate impression of the deep tech and entrepreneurship landscape in Lapland, we invited speakers from our local ecosystem to present their work and share knowledge.

The approach we took for this peer learning event was to begin by presenting about the availability, opportunities and challenges of implementing 5G technology at the University of Lapland. To do so, we invited a speaker from University of Oulu who has high capabilities in the field of 5G and Lapland University of Applied Sciences who is currently deploying its 5G network to share their view about implementing 5G at the University of Lapland.

After looking at the network capabilities we continued with a session about the research on 5G and entrepreneurship at the University of Lapland. The main point raised was that there is an increasing need to look at 5G technology from a legal and social sciences perspective since these disciplines can help address societal challenges concerning 5G. Since entrepreneurship is a crucial part of our project work, we invited an expert from the University of Lapland to present the start-up and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Following two lively sessions about the 5G and Beyond ecosystem at the University of Lapland, the day continued with a session about technology and its utilization in Lapland, a representative from the Chamber of Commerce in Lapland gave our project partners a deeper insight into the region itself as well its opportunities and challenges. Since Lapland is a peripheral region in the Arctic, there are a few particularities to consider when implementing new technologies.

To facilitate the knowledge intake, we organized three site visits to meet local stakeholders and hear their stories and deepen the project partners’ understanding of the local ecosystem. 

Our successful peer learning event is part of a series of regional peer learning events across europe. You can find the recap of our first peer learning event in Valencia, Spain in the digital library and will soon find news about our upcoming peer learning events in Liberec and Thessaloniki.

SINCO accelerates the construction, testing, and development of service prototypes

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Explore the dynamic intersection of innovation and practicality at The Service Innovation Corner (SINCO), the service prototyping laboratory located within the University of Lapland’s Faculty of Arts and Design, Finland. Functionally divided into five categories, SINCO redefines service

To create a prototyping lab for service and interaction design at the University of Lapland, the lab was set up as a component of the co-naming SINCO project, funded by the European Regional Development. As a facility for service design practice, SINCO is a laboratory idea comprising an environment and a collection of equipment appropriate for service prototype and interaction design.  The laboratory is a space that combines elements of a showroom, theater, craft studio, and a contemporary meeting room. It is a setting where you are empowered to take any action necessary to concretize and test experiences. SINCO provides tools for concretizing whole user experiences, in contrast to traditional mockup workshops often employed in industrial design.

The SINCO laboratory is functionally divided into five categories: Servicescape Simulation, Service Stage, Digital Touchpoint Toolkit, Rough Mock-up Crafting, and Teamwork & Documentation Tools. 

SINCO allows for the speedy construction, testing, and development of service prototypes. The prototypes are quick and simple to construct and vary since they are heavily reliant on digital prototyping material, such as images, videos, and recorded sounds. This fosters the co-creational ethos of service design, where anybody may build on the ideas of others, and is perfect for hands-on service development, as new ideas are developed while testing current prototypes.

Because of SINCO laboratory’s hands-on expertise with service prototypes, the client company’s R&D employees are now more closely involved in service development. As a result, suggested customer experiences and service journeys provide greater context for assessing and inventing new solutions. Involving company employees in service prototyping by enacting, analyzing, or constructing service journeys has given them the ability to assess the service experience from the user’s perspective rather than from an outsider’s perspective.

SINCO has worked closely with the following companies on service prototypes: Lapin Kansa (local daily newspaper), Ranua Zoo (Lapland’s wildlife park), and KL-Kopio (digital printing company). The close collaboration with companies has shown how service prototyping approaches and the SINCO laboratory were employed at various stages of the service design process, as well as how this improved design thinking in the companies.