ECEC'2006, 13th Annual European Concurrent Engineering Conference, Athens Imperial Hotel, Athens, Greece, April 17-19, 2006, Conference Keynote

Conference Keynote

Open & Collaborative Innovation in a European Network of Living Labs
Fanuel Dewever
Senior Consultant
IBM Business Consulting Services
IBM Belgium

The way innovation is managed is undergoing a major paradigm shift itself. Research no longer solely happens in silos within thick corporate or academic walls! Increasingly we see the emergence of a new approach to innovation: collaborative innovation. Especially in Europe this collaborative approach has a bright future, as it allows us to innovate by tapping into Europe’s diversity which was long deemed a barrier to innovation adoption. Often however, participation is still limited to closed partnerships with limited involvement from the end user.

Through Living Labs we can realize sustainable systemic innovation by enabling co-creation of innovation in open public, private and civic partnerships. The Finnish EU Presidency will launch a European Network of Living Labs on November 21, 2006. This is the first step towards a New European Innovation System (EIS).

In this session, Mr. Dewever will give you a deeper insight in what Living Labs are, in what they are not and in how you could benefit from engaging in open innovation through Living Labs.

Biography Fanuel Dewever

Fanuel Dewever is Senior Consultant in IBM Business Consulting Services. Fanuel has deep hands-on experience in the area of Strategy & Innovation, Collaborative Workplaces, eLearning, Knowledge Management, Process Improvement and IT strategy, which he acquired on projects in the services industry and the government sector.

With several speaking engagements in Europe, Fanuel is a regular speaker at seminars and conferences. He is member of the eLearning Industry Group (eLIG), the AMI@Work Policy Taskforce and the European Expert Group for Collaborative Work Environments & Living Labs. Through his involvement in several European and local expert groups he provides decision makers with policy advice on human capital development and innovation management.

Fanuel Dewever holds university degrees in Organizational and Managerial Informatics (1998) and in Applied Economics (with majors in Marketing and Informatics, 1999), both from the Brussels University (VUB). In April 2005 he started an executive MBA programme at Henley Management College (UK). He is acknowledged for his contributions to two books and is the author of several articles and papers