"From  local  Living  Lab  to  European  MVNO  Business"  

The  biggest  living  lab  in  the  world  (2004)  

Flanders  

6  x  €  300.000  =  €  1.800.000    €  1.800.000  +  

Research  Mobile  ApplicaNon    

Build  a  Wireless  City  with  >  500  hotspots    

+   2.000  test  users    

Biggest  success  

Alfa  community  of  i-­‐City  

200  users  did  receive  a  very  small  budget  and  technical  support  for  their  dream  applicaNon  

A  lot  of  the  alfa’s  did  became  an  employee  of  one  of  the  founding  companies  of  i-­‐City.  

i-­‐City  2006  (before  Apple)  

hWp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDGNLm8eAgk&feature=player_embedded  

Lessons  learned  

•  CommunicaNon  is  key  •  Hands  on  versus  academic  approach  •  Unpredictable  •  MulNdisciplinary  approach  works  •  Don’t  be  afraid  to  fail    •  Bringing  people  into  one  project  leads  to  new  businesses  

•  Partnerships  

Spin-­‐offs  

Our  spin-­‐off  

Our  spin-­‐off  

i-­‐City  moved  to  IBBT  (ilab.o)  

What  did  we  take  from  the  lab  

•  Good  people  •  Partnerships  •  The  conversaNon  approach  with  new  tools  like  TwiWer  and  Facebook  

•  Discussion  with  focus  groups  •  Trial  and  error  •  ConNnuous  innovaNon  •  Build,  test,  break,  rebuild,  test,  …  

Example  1  

Did  start  as  a  mini  lab  for  KPN    We  build  our  website  with  3  ex-­‐alfa’s    We  sNll  organize  focus  groups      We  found  our  first  test  user  over  twiWer      

Growth  Mobile  Vikings  

0  

20,000  

40,000  

60,000  

80,000  

100,000  

120,000  

Example  2  

Build  with  the  community    Open  API’s  for  developers    Test  groups  of  users      Test  groups  of  merchants    Build,  test,  break,  rebuild,  test,  …            

Result  in  one  week  

>  24.000  Spots  made  by  Mobile  Vikings  

Products  

             Maybe  ?    Viking  TV    Viking  Media    Viking  Gaming  

Plans  

+  

Viking  Research  ?  

European  Plans  

•  Poland  •  Germany  •  Netherlands  •  ???  

European  Plans  

•  Poland  •  Germany  •  Netherlands  •  ???  

Same  approach  build,  test,  rebuild,  test  …  

Next  big  step    

•  Strong  idenNty  management  •  Layers  

Next  big  step    

•  Strong  idenNty  management  •  Layers  

For  this  we  will  need  partners      Academic  Partners    Governement    Business  Partners  

Thank  you  

TwiWer  :  @flaorank