Innovative inputs through Living Lab format and internationalization
When international companies from all over the North Sea region come together at a Living Lab event to present their innovative solutions this is by far not only interesting for the project initiators who issued and own the challenges. Also, other private companies, municipalities or researchers have shown great interest in the events and the innovation that the solution providers presented so far.
The Living Lab concept and the tools that can be applied within such an invent offer several options to integrate external participants that are neither solutions providers nor challenge owners. For the two Living Labs “Billebogen” and “Flensburg Fjord Region” which took place in Hamburg in June 2019, a plenary session combined informational input on the current energy infrastructure developments in Northern Germany with pitch sessions.
During the pitch sessions, the international and national solutions providers had the opportunity to present their innovations and concepts not only to the challenge owners of the two Living Labs “Billebogen” and “Flensburg Fjord Region”, but also to all other participants from Germany and the North Sea Region. This way, the German guest participants were provided with a good overview of innovations from outside of Germany and the opportunity to broaden their horizons to technology developments from the North Sea Region.
Although there are many, only a few of the small and medium companies and their promising solutions are well-known within the entire North Sea Region. Since these companies often offer concepts with great potential and versatile applicability, the chance to get to know several of them at once during the Living Lab Events is gladly taken.