The eight winners of the Labs Global Award will be invited to pilot their solutions in these cities, proving the effectiveness of new solutions and offering a first step for innovative providers to enter new markets

Eight global cities from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America join forces with Living Labs Global in a challenge to find innovative solutions to major societal problems by opening competition among international solution-, technology- and service providers. 

Living Labs Global a non-profit association to promote digital service innovation in cities, will be working with the cities of Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Lagos, San Francisco, Sant Cugat, Stockholm, and Taipei to choose the companies and organizations that have developed solutions that add high value to users in cities around the world.

Now in its second edition, which in 2010 attracted 317 entries from 32 countries and has brought pilots such as the intelligent waste management system to Barcelona, Oracle Corporation and Asia’s Farglory have been named as corporate partners for the 2011 Living Labs Global Award. The participating cities, representing 40 million citizens from Europe, Africa, North America and Asia call for solutions that can solve some of their most pressing challenges. Challenges include social inclusion, intelligent transport, urban service automation, urban lighting, open data systems, smart living, and healthcare. Submissions follow the format of the Living Labs Global Showcase, which already today presents more than 450 international service innovations. Submissions to qualify for the Living Labs Global Showcase Award can be submitted until the 28th of February 2011.

Eight Categories for the Award are being presented in partnership with cities that seek to identify the best solutions to meet their strategic challenges. Showcases will be reviewed against all categories, and a shortlist of the top 5 Showcases will be presented by the international juries on March 21st 2011. The final Award winners will be announced at the Award Ceremony on May 12th 2011 in Stockholm on occasion of the Stockholm Summit on Service Innovation in Cities.

The Award Categories were defined together with decision-makers in cities around the world. Not all cities are big, but this Award attempts to represent a range of challenges facing cities today. Behind each Category lies the commitment of a city to pilot the winning showcase, with full institutional support to evaluate the impact the solution can have on reaching the community’s objectives.