Gävle Innovation Arena
About this good practice
Future Position X is a cluster and an independent non-profit Digital Innovation Hub based in Gävle. By initiating projects, creating relationships and building collaborations, FPX contributes to collaboration between business, academia and the public sector.
The Gävle Innovation Arena can be used to digitally model societies. It is a 3*3 km physical area in the city centre of Gävle, but also a data lake (a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed), including around 100 layers of data (from the municipality, the Swedish Land Survey, the University of Gävle and co-labs/companies) which are continuously growing. Co-labs of the Arena have access to the information/data and can use it to test/develop new services and products. If this is done in an open way, i.e. sharing the results, it is free – if it isn’t, there is a fee. Nevertheless, the data lake is open to anyone (after approval as a co-lab) for cooperation and development.
The co-labs contribute with different components in terms of resources, perspectives and functionality. They create an inspiring, productive and collaborative environment to promote, create and produce research solutions and innovations – all for the benefit of a future smart, sustainable and viable city.
Resources needed
The project is financed through the Swedish Innovation Foundation (VINNOVA).
HR: CEO, developer, senior developer and process manager
Evidence of success
Massive amounts of data about the city are collected, links to the health and perceived well-being of citizens. One model simulates pedestrians and their movement patterns from motion sensors and weather forecasts to predict how many people will be in a city centre tomorrow. With GPS locations and spatiotemporal biometric data collected via a smartphone app, the city can also understand how a specific location influences health and wellbeing.
Potential for learning or transfer
The platform uses open data as an opportunity to create new innovations and is developed in line with a number of ongoing innovation projects around data modelling and simulation. It opens up the application of Data Science as neural networks and other artificial intelligence – this significantly shortens the starting distance for players who want to innovate new community-focused services, businesses and solutions.
Further information
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.