Active co-creation during IST-Africa Living Labs Workshop Group Meeting, 08 May, Dar es Salaam

The IST-Africa Living Labs Thematic Working Group Meeting was organised as a pre-conference event on Tuesday 08 May in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in cooperation with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology and TanzICT. It provided an opportunity for all key stakeholders interested in learning more about the potential of Living Labs for socio-economic development to work together to co-create a framework for future emerging Living Labs and Networks in a developing country context.

Over 90 delegates from Europe and Africa co-created during this highly participatory meeting.

Following a short warm-up session, the first participatory session focused on Stakeholder Roles in Living Labs. Each participant contributed up to ten stakeholder roles, which were then grouped by table based on similar interests.

All contributions for each table were then collected and common attributes in terms of stakeholders, motivation, expectations and contributions were compiled and presented back to the full group. The outcomes of this group work on Stakeholder Roles is included in the full Report.

During Session 2 Harvesting Different Perspectives and Emerging Issues on African Living Labs, each participant reviewed the contributions from the group and selected their three top priorities by assigning a star. The top priorities selected by the group were then identified as the elements to be discussed further during the Open Spaces session.

Paul Cunningham, coordinator of the IST-Africa Initiative provided an overview of the existing and emerging Living Labs in Africa and the Recommendations from the Report "Supporting the Evolution of Sustainable Living Labs and Living Lab Networks in Africa. This presentation can be downloaded.

Prof Alvaro Oliveria shared lessons learnt from European Network of Living Labs and Prof Marlien Herselman shared lessons learnt from the Living Labs of Southern Africa Network.

Based on the 8 topics selected from the group work, participants then contributed to relevant tables with one person recording each topic discussion and then reporting back to the full group. The Working Group meeting concluded with an interactive discussion.

Click here to download the full report.

Background to the IST-Africa Living Lab Thematic Working Group Meeting

This IST-Africa Living Labs Thematic Working Group Meeting which directly supports the 2nd Action Plan of the 8th Africa-EU Strategic Partnership follows on from the inaugural IST-Africa Living Labs Workshop organised by IIMC (IST-Africa Coordinator) on 10 May 2011 in Gaborone, Botswana, and the subsequent IST-Africa Living Labs Validation Workshops undertaken by IIMC with national stakeholders in East Africa - hosted by Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Burundi (26 - 27 September 2011); Tanzania National Commission for Science and Technology (29 - 30 September 2011), Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (06 - 07 October 2011), Ministry of Science and Technology, Ethiopia (24 November 2011), and in Southern Africa - hosted by the National Commission for Science and Technology, Malawi (17 November 2011); Ministry of Communications and Transport, Zambia (22 November 2011); and Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Swaziland (29 November 2011).

The IST-Africa Living Labs Report "Supporting the Evolution of Sustainable Living Labs and Living Labs Networks in Africa" ISBN 978-1-905824-28-1 can be downloaded from http://www.ist-africa.org/home/default.asp?page=reports