The Living Lab on Wellbeing Services and Technology focuses on the present and future needs of technology suppliers in the social and health care sector. The Living Lab brings together a wide range of different parties such as technology suppliers, users, municipalities, enterprises, third sector actors and experts, universities, regional development organisations as well as regional, national and international networks to design and produce more valuable technology and robotics solutions.
The users have an active, important and highly valued role in the development of the welfare technology and robotics solutions. Inclusion and empowerment of users throughout the product development processes supports the development and deployment of user-friendly technology. Multidimensional co-operation, expertise and concrete development ideas enhance the creation of new, re-defined or re-designed technology solutions and increase the business opportunities and competitiveness of welfare technology companies.
Prizztech has implemented Living Lab activities in several welfare technology projects since 2009. Living Lab Co-operation developed by Prizztech Ltd was nominated as a finalist in the EU’s RegioStars Competition 2013 in the category of Social innovation.
The aim is to develop the social and health care sector with the help of welfare technology and robotics and accelerate the procurement and use of digital technologies in care.
The Living lab also aims at providing a product development platform for technology and robotics companies in order to promote their products and services and help them in the testing and prototyping phase.
Prizztech Ltd. provides an opportunity for welfare technology and robotics enterprises to test their prototypes and products in Living Lab environments. The Living Lab methodology emphasises the real-life user participation in product development. Welfare technology products and services are tested in real life contexts in collaboration with public, private and third sector organisations for most cases two to six months per service or product. During testing processes, welfare technology suppliers receive valuable feedback, expertise and concrete development ideas from users and health care professionals to support their product development.
During the latest project HYVÄKSI – Innovation Network on Welfare Technology 34 Living Lab cases were implemented with 21 technology companies. The Living Lab cases focused on developing 23 technology services (e.g safety, communication and activation technology, virtual reality and robotics).
The pilots were put in practice in 13 social and health care organisations in the Pori region. During the project several technology procurements were made. Total 735 users (371 clients, 270 social and health care professionals, 69 relatives and 25 students) participated in the technology pilots. The experiences and results were shared in numerous events and seminars and over 70 articles were written of the project. The project also held 23 technology lessons for 398 social and health care students.
The Living Lab actions are continued in the Robocoast R&D Center - Robotics Living Lab for Companies.