“The way we usually tackle problems and suggest solutions is a result of the environment we are fostered in. At Open Lab, we see it as a strength when different disciplines and competences work together. Novel ideas are born from a process where different perspectives meet” – Ivar Björkman, Open Lab.
It is important that the solutions generated at Open Lab addresses real problems and get used in real life.
Open Lab is the result of a collaboration between four major universities in Stockholm, as well as the city of Stockholm, Stockholm County Council and the County Administrative Board. These parties have joined forces in order to meet the challenges of the growing capital. Ivar Björkman at Open Lab says they realized the need of collaboration between the universities and organizations within the public sector in order to work with issues that concern citizens of Stockholm.
Ivar Björkman mentiones two current challenges that the students have been working on. One concerns the care of elderly, where the students identify needs elderly people may have, for instance when they wish to live in their homes longer. The second example concerns how we navigate through instances of the health care sector. What can be made more obvious to the citizen, and how can we make more patients seek health care from the primary health care, rather than from the emergency ward? How do we build relations with the health care sector, when for the better part of our lives, we are not in need of it?
Although Open Lab is a small organization, they work broadly to recruit students for future courses. The aim is to be one of the most innovative trans-disciplinary environments in Europe within three to four years, and as such, to attract highly motivated students and researchers from all over the world.
Open Lab is a collaboration between the city of Stockholm, Stockholm County Council, the County Administrative Board, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Södertörn University.