Presentation delivered in a World Bank workshop on innovation hubs in Gran Concepcion, Chile, on October 6th till 10th 2014. The slideshow outlines Waag Society's approach and consists of four themes: ecosystem, delivering value, developing services & business, and delivering to the real world. More information on the workshop (mostly in Spanish) can be found here: http://www.innovationhubs.org

1. Artistic Research,
Critical Design & Social Innovation
Frank Kresin
Research Director
@kresin / frank@waag.org

2. Smart Cities need Smart Citizens
http://waag.org/en/blog/manifesto-smart-citizens

3. Technology
• For self expression and
communication
• Linking people, groups,
communities
• Sharing thoughts,
blueprints, algorithms
• Reflecting &
understanding
And discovering it’s
underlying meaning.

4. Waag Labs
Open Design Lab
Wet Lab Creative Care Lab
Future Internet Lab
Creative Learning Lab
Urban Reality Lab
https://www.waag.org/en/labs/research

5. Results

6. ECOSYSTEM

7. http://www.amsterdam.nl/kunst-cultuur-sport/werkplekken/broedplaatsen/broedplaatsenkaart/

8. Ecosystem Amsterdam I
Culture
• Netherlands, Amsterdam especially, is
full of networkers, wanting to
collaborate for mutual benefit
• Players are to-the-point, direct,
mostly non-political
• Short lines between different
kinds of stakeholders
• Sometimes: looking for too short-term
effect
• So: need to find the rights partners
that want to innovate with you
Policy
• Feedback loops from civil society &
companies do exist.
• Amsterdam invites people in and
helps to organise
• Keen eye for bottom-up
development, and connecting to
bottom-up developers
• Policy mindset is favourable to
novelty and innovation.
• A lot is learned from
international cooperation

9. Ecosystem Amsterdam II
Support
• There is a very active layer of
support structures available:
• Non-governmental institutions
• Foundations
• Funding agencies
• Accelerators
• Knowledge institute
• Civil society groups
• Over 60 innovation hubs
• The culture is informal, which makes
professionals easy to access
• The internet, business & financial
support structures are well developed
Markets
• Amsterdam is the Netherlands most
important & vibrant creative design
hub
• Lots of startups
• Some large companies (TomTom,
Guerilla Games, Philips, Shell)
• Lots of business clubs, networking
agencies
• Openness to disruptive
innovation (Uber, AirBNB)
• However: there is not a Silicon
Valley start-up culture (yet)

10. Ecosystem Amsterdam III
Human Capital
• A large number of talented and
motivated individuals is available
• Many (Eastern Europeans, Chinese &
Indians) come to study in NL
• Open, tolerant atmosphere
• Short ties to educational & research
institutions
• Actors are generally good at
networking
• Entrepreneurship skills & mindset
starting to become bigger
Finance
• Top-sector Creative Industries
• Government invests in accelerators
• Crowd-funding becomes available
• Funding for collaborations
between universities and
companies
• Tax reduction in innovation
• Tax reduction for start-up
companies
• European funding for start-ups
and large integrated projects

11. Knowledge institutes
Developer hubs
Accelerators
Innovation labs

12. Enabler1-EU projects, network, real-time experiments, access to novel technologies,
ENOLL living labs
Enabler2-Amsterdam Economic Board: PPP’s, business community, experiences from pilots
Slide courtesy of Katalin Gallyas, CTO Office Amsterdam

13. Ecosytem Evangelists
Ivonne Jansen-Dings,
Waag Society
(hackathons)
Arjen Hof- Civity
(open data)
CTO Office Amsterdam
Ger Baron CTO
Willem
Koeman
(PPP’s)
Katalin Gallyas
Policy, frameworks,
Funds

14. Development Community

15. DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
http://www.ams-amsterdam.com/

16. Partners

17. Ecosystem actors
• Peers
Forum Virium, FutureEverything, FING, Ars Electronica,
I2Cat, Fablab network, Nesta, Young Foundation, ..
• Cities
Amsterdam, Helsinki, Manchester, Barcelona, Rome,
Lisbon, Athens, Berlin, London, …
• Companies
Cisco, CMG, IBM, Glimworm, Rooter, ..
• Knowledge Institutes
Aalto, MIT, Esade Business School, Dundee, iMinds, ..
• Funding
H2020, Creative Europe, Erasmus+, FI-PPP, AAL

18. Smart Citizen Kit
http://waag.org/en/project/smart-citizen-kit

19. Fabschool
http://waag.org/en/project/fabschool

20. Learnings
• True innovation takes a leap of faith:
chose your partners and sponsors wisely
• Ecosystems need to be nurtured:
you have to give before you take
• Ecosystems are about people,
therefore about trust
• It can take considerable time to get to know it
and for them to know you
• There are always more ways to get there

21. VALUE

22. Creative Research

23. Value we bring
• Neutral, non-profit space to gather and think
outside of the box
• Human centered co-creation practice
• Communities of users and civil society
• Design Thinking & Design Doing
• Bringing art & culture into innovation
• Extensive network / ecosystem
• Hands-on technology knowledge
• International scouting of new ideas

24. Health Living Lab

25. Waag Values

26. What design can do?
• Retain a focus on the user / citizen
• Give a structure for being creative about
problem-solving
• Test iterations of possible solutions in order to
learn more about the problem
• Identify new, more relevant ideas and services
and steward them through delivery
• Engage users (citizens and employees) in the
design of change.
Design Council, UK: Restarting Britain

27. Developing Services & Business

28. Outcomes

29. Activities & Services
• Linking arts, science, technology & society in
research programmes
• Human centered product development
• Facilitating innovation processes
• Consultancy, workshops & brainstorms
• Visualizations, demonstrators & prototypes
• Incubating products
• Organizing events &
competitions
• Academy programme

30. Users as Designers

31. Key
activities
Workshops
Artistic
Research Government
Social
Innovation
Cost structure Revenue streams
www.businessmodelgeneration.com
Key resources
Key
partners
Value
proposition
Costumer
relationships
Costumer
segments
Channels
Critical
Design Companies
(small/large)
Creative
Industries
Fund
Research
Funding
Assignments
Human
Talent
Lab
Infrastructure
Travel,
Expenses, ..
Funding
Agencies
Designers
Programmers
Domain
Experts
website
Presentations
Peers
Knowledge
Institutes
Cities
R&D
Facilitations
Academy
Individuals /
Groups
Civil Society
City of
Amsterdam
Products
& Services
Knowledge
one-to-one
contact
Human
Centered:

32. Income structure

33. Delivering to the Real World

34. Corporate Structure

35. Creative Research

36. Labyrinth Psychotica
Jennifer Kanary: http://www.labyrinthpsychotica.org/

37. Bodyguard

38. Fairphone

39. Books

40. Fablab Amsterdam

41. Sint Antoniesbreestraat 69
1011 HB Amsterdam
waag.org
Frank Kresin
frank@waag.org
@kresin