Living Labs Spark Co-Innovation in Songdo

As I promised in my last blog, A New World of Co-Innovation, I want to update you on the outcomes of the Cisco TAG.PASS Smart Innovation Programme.

After 22 weeks of co-development efforts from ideation to prototyping, the Cisco-TAG.PASS Demo Day event held on Sep 22, 2016 was a huge success. The six finalists from Korea and Singapore gave their presentations to more than 100 attendees, including investors, incubators, commercial partners, and Singapore government officials.

In addition, we saw some new business opportunities emerging from the programme, including some solutions that complement Cisco’s existing solutions portfolio.

Watch the video on the Cisco-TAG.PASS Inaugural Demo Day 2016.

One of the important lessons we’ve learned throughout this programme is that a strong partner ecosystem is the key for successful co-innovation. What also stands out for me is how corporations and startups can win together by leveraging each other’s strengths. That’s especially true where I’m located in Songdo, South Korea.

Songdo is not just one of the new cities emerging in Korea. To our team at the Cisco Innovation Center Korea, it’s the very place where we’re creating a culture of co-innovation by partnering with our ecosystem partners and the local government through the Living Labs Initiative.

You can find the detailed story of our first living lab called IoT Cube in this article on The Network.

At the Cisco Innovation Center Korea, we’ve been partnering with our solution partners, startups, developers, and universities to co-develop innovative solutions. Again, I’m excited that we’re building a strong partner ecosystem that shares a spirit of innovation that will play a key role in powering co-innovation powered through our living labs. It will also enable our partners to be ready for increasingly shorter innovation cycles and time-to-market.

And equally important, the whole idea behind the living lab is that we’d like to foster a user-driven open innovation based on a business, citizen, and government partnership. The idea is to facilitate broad collective action, letting users take an active part in the innovation process.

As we’re partnering with the local government, we’ve launched our second living lab called Innovation@Park at Center Park in Songdo. It’s exciting to watch citizens discover the living lab concept and be part of the innovation process. Songdo can serve as a testing ground for the future as we co-develop solutions.

Check out the video clip about Innovate@Park and learn more about the Living Lab Initiative.

We’re planning to expand our living labs in many parts of Songdo, and Songdo will be a truly living and breathing lab, where new innovations are embraced by the citizens living in Songdo.

In fact, our innovation center is not shy about opening our door to the public. We’re planning to let them be part of our innovation process from ideation, prototyping and validation to refinement through the Living Lab Initiative. I believe that innovation should be more social than personal based on interaction and collaboration.

Again, it’s amazing to witness innovation happening all around the world, but it’s equally exciting for me to be part of co-innovation efforts led by the Global Center of Excellence and other Cisco innovation centers around the world.

I’ll keep you updated on progress we make through our co-innovation activities.

Until then, happy co-innovation!

@Ben Chung

@Cisco Innovation Center

@Global Center of Excellence, Cisco Innovation Center, Korea