Background for the lab

Far North Living Lab was established out of dual needs:

Research projects need fairly similar pilot and focus groups.
Creative actors wanted the possibility for technological experiments in co-operation with researchers

Capabilities and characteristics

Far North Living Lab is for research and experiments in digital media and creative businesses.

Partners so far comprise researchers, film producers, musicians, game producers, digital cinemas, international music festivals, international film festivals, ISPs etc.

The most important capability and attributes of Far North Living Lab:

A network of researchers in different fields, creative businesses and artists, scenes and innovation businesses that have all signed up as members of the Far North Living Lab
Both research projects and creative ideas are using the lab. The lab is open both for long-term research and short-term "stunts" that might trigger innovations and discover new challenges.
Gigabit fibre optic network in a county covering scenes and cinemas, research organisations, schools, digital centres and municipalities. The network is free of charge for the living lab.

Unique / special characteristics of the lab:

Very high speed network over a large area
The multidisciplinary network that has signed an agreement to co-operate with the lab combined with the Nordic tradition of user-driven innovation. Northern Norway has a fairly limited number of inhabitants, making it easier to discover potential collaborative partners and projects.
Due to the physical distance from central Europe, most festivals have a high presence online to increase their relevance, and further increasing such activities is of great interest.
Innovative content and creative know-how made available by digitized cinemas and other scenes together with artists and festivals
Early access to software for p2p distribution and storage through several research projects

Organisation

Far North Living Lab was formally established with a happening in June 2009 .

The Living Lab is organised as a project, and the main activities in the lab are also organised as projects. The main activities are organising experiments, logging, information, etc. In addition a couple of world-first "stunts" have been tried out directly from the lab; a video-on-demand BitTorrent transfer of a full resolution cinema film to a cinema theatre and a live BitTorrent transfer from a festival in Norway (film and live music) to a film festival in Beijing (the Notch festival) - and the rest of the world .

The projects spend their own resources for experiments in the lab.

Business models

The lab itself has so far no plans to be established as a company, but as a project with funding from sponsors (including public) and projects.

One objective of the lab is to help participating partners to establish new business models in a world where the business for digital products has changed dramatically the last few years. The lab will provide technology and access to scenes, equipment and competence that will enable experiments that would otherwise be impossible or very difficult to execute. It is expected that some of these experiments will provide valuable and necessary knowledge in discovering new services and business models.