Bio: Evdokimos Konstantinidis, President, European Network of Living Labs - ENoLL, Greece
Dr. Evdokimos I. Konstantinidis is the leader of the Assistive Technologies and Silver Science Research Group in the Medical Physics and Digital Innovation Lab, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received the Diploma in electronic engineering from the Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in the Laboratory of Medical Physics of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 2015. He is currently coordinating the Research Infrastructure H2020 project, VITALISE - aiming to harmonize the procedures and ICT tools of the Health and Wellbeing Living Labs towards creating an open ecosystem for the European researchers. He is the Chairperson of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) and coordinator of the Health and Wellbeing Living Labs Action Oriented Task Force. He is currently the coordinator of the RAISE Horizon Europe funded project on services for the European Open Science Cloud, towards a crowdsource network for data processing. He has been principal investigator for a couple of national and international funded projects. In 2020, as a result of the H2020 funded project named CAPTAIN H2020 (technically coordinated by him), he co-founded CAPTAIN-COACH, one of the first 10 spin-offs of AUTH.
His research interests lie predominately in the area of living labs methodologies combined with agile aspects in the Health and Wellbeing domain as well as design of tools used as interventions for elderly in the field of exergaming, indoor monitoring and e-coaching (h-index: 17, ~ 1774 citations). He supported the establishment of the Thessaloniki Action for Health and Wellbeing Living Lab (ThessAHALL) which in 2016 became an adherent member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). He has authored more than 70 publications in various international peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and he co-chaired the OLLD2019 Conference in Thessaloniki.
Abstract: "The Living Lab Approach in Co-creating open science and open innovation Gerontech Ecosystems"
Living Labs are open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments based on a systematic user co-creation approach that integrates research and innovation activities in communities, placing citizens at the centre of innovation.” At the heart of any type of Living Lab there are two key process taking place: Open Innovation and User-driven Innovation. “Open” because it is about taping the knowledge and know-how that exist outside of your organisation by engaging with others. “User” centred or driven because Living Labs actively and directly involve, throughout the innovation development process, end-users, be that older adults, citizens, clients or that final person or group that innovation is made for. And to do so, Living Labs provide the tools and services for real life observation and experimentation. The Living Lab methodology can ensure that the experimentation procedure, involving older adults as co-creators, will lead to results that can be applied in real life, eliminating the gap between labs and real life.
There is a plethora of services and Research/Technology Infrastructures that can be provided by living labs to research groups, companies and startups. These services can minimize the effort and maximize the value of the outcomes while at the same time reducing the time to market of new innovative and useful products. Specific examples on how communities of older adults have been built and sustained by some of our living lab members will be presented along with the challnges and lessons learnt.
