Boosting the Hub Network: Workshop for Developing Collaboration between the Built Environment Hubs Worldwide

Innovation hubs are emerging in different parts of the world. These national hubs try to help local companies to create new business around digital services, spread technological innovations in the architecture, engineering... [ view full abstract ]

Innovation hubs are emerging in different parts of the world. These national hubs try to help local companies to create new business around digital services, spread technological innovations in the architecture, engineering and construction sector, and develop the innovation and entrepreneurial mindset and skills of the hub members. It’s great to have national hubs, but the hubs can provide more value to hub members and gain more momentum by collaborating with each other. By collaborating, the hubs can learn from each other, spread best practices, and help companies to create international business with the help of the international hub network.

The international Built Environment Innovation (BEI for short) Hub network is slowly emerging. We have identified several suitable candidates for the BEI Hub-network. These hubs are mainly national hubs: BCA Academy Singapore (https://www.bcaa.edu.sg), BLOXHUB in Denmark (http://bloxhub.org), Digital Fabrication Network in the US (http://dfabnet.org), American Steel Studios in Oakland (https://localwiki.org/oakland/American_Steel_Studios), Process Innovation Forum (https://www.thepif.org/), EMPA NEST (https://www.empa.ch/web/nest) in Zürich and the AEC Hackathon community (http://aechackathon.com). In addition to these countries, Sweden, Estonia, Scotland, UK, Germany, and China are planning to launch their hubs. Finland is also developing its own Built Environment Innovation Hub (KIRA-InnoHub) which is expected to be launched in August 2018 and presented to a broader audience at the WDBE. The Finnish KIRA-InnoHub will concentrate on improving the flow of data, providing learning and research opportunities, and helping companies to develop new business from digital technologies. The second development workshop of the KIRA-InnoHub was held in May, 2018. You can read about the results of the workshop here: https://synecon.fi/2018/06/09/kira-innohub-development-workshop-may-30-2018-in-maria-01/.

Collaboration does not happen by itself. The collaboration between the hubs of the international Hub-network needs to be developed and coordinated. Synecon Ltd is a small management consulting company that is specialized in facilitating the development of inter-organizational relationships. Rita Lavikka and Antero Hirvensalo from Synecon will organize an innovation workshop for developing collaboration between the international hub organizations. We have over ten years of experience in organizing transformation processes that consist of co-creation workshops and business hacks with several private and public organizations. Our background is in the academia where we have worked as action-oriented researchers in the area of digital transformation. Teemu Lehtinen, the chief digital officer of KIRA-digi project, will also participate in the organizing of the workshop as the Finnish KIRA-InnoHub will partly be based on the continuation of the KIRA-digi project (http://www.kiradigi.fi).

The World Summit on Digital Built Environment is the perfect place and timing for gathering hub organizations and their key actors together to understand how to collaborate between the hubs. All interested WDBE participants are warmly welcome to participate in the workshop and discuss their needs and offering for the hub services.

The 90-minutes innovation workshop will be organized at the WDBE on Tuesday 11, September 2018 12:45-14:15 with the international hub network actors and other interested WDBE participants to 1) get to know each other 2) understand the collaboration possibilities, and 3) agree on the next steps for collaboration.