www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu

1. Tools for External Collaboration
FITT
– Fostering Interregional Exchange in ICT Technology Transfer –
www.FITT-for-Innovation.eu
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

2. Case study on Mobile Jungle web platform
 Collaborative web platform as an implementation of national initiative
on mobile services, focused on transfer (technology, knowledge,
competencies, ideas)
 The architecture of the platform is reusable; the initiative can be
converted to other sectors and geographical locations (national/regional
markets)
 Case is mostly generic
 Stakeholders: development engineers, TT and Communication officers
 The case is related to FITT processes: “Communication &
Collaboration” and “Network Management”
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3. The Mobile Jungle concept
 Platform for networking and collaboration between various stakeholders of
mobile services sector
 Objective:
to facilitate interaction between research – large companies – clusters –
SMEs – entrepreneurs, boost innovation and leverage transfer projects
 Mean:
by creating and maintaining an online collaboration environment designed
specially for the mobile services community
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4. The context – Initiative on mobile services
 Mobile Jungle is a part of the French national initiative on mobile services (“Initiative
Services Mobiles”), which involves:
- research institutes in ICT
- ICT clusters and associations
- large telecom groups
- innovative SMEs
- innovation agency supporting SMEs
 One of the first of national initiatives launched to boost the innovation and transfer in
the sector of strategic importance
 Targets a fast-growing market with high potential
 Similar initiatives will be launched in other sectors (high performance computing is
the next to come)
 In this perspective this initiative will be broadened from national to European market
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5. The context - Initiative for mobile services
 The objective is to stimulate the national ecosystem of mobile services
through coordinated actions and to leverage the innovation capacity of its
players
 The main elements:
 Mobile Jungle – platform for networking and collaboration for mobile
services community
 Data Publica – access to public data for software developers
 SMEs programme – support for SMEs to enter or to expand on the mobile
services market
 Some other elements under development
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6. Mobile Jungle – the origin
 INRIA is coordinating the mobile services initiative
 Mobile Jungle was the first implemented action
 there was a need for a good starting point which will centralize people and ideas
and will generate new projects in a longer term
 the platform was designed by INRIA engineers with help of TT associates
(labs-industry interface)
 it aims to provide multiple but complementary facilities:
- networking environment (online equivalent of professional trade fairs)
- collaboration interface (discussions, ideas, uploads, wikis)
- complete source of information about activities in the sector
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7. Mobile Jungle – how does it work?
groups
blogs discussions
COMMUNITY
documents
idea box
sharing
links to
surveys
wikis
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8. Mobile Jungle – how does it work?
The mapping of mobile services “jungle” - search directory sorted by:
People Organisations Results
Type Software
Among
community Applications
members Market /
application Patents
Technology / Projects
Filtered by user scientific domain
name or type of Articles
interest Geographical
location Theses
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9. Mobile Jungle – how does it work?
Bunch of useful features:
• calendar of events
• calls for projects
• tenders
• job offers
• press releases
• Google map with mobile services organisations
• advanced search engine
• homepage with summary of recent community updates and events
• chat and mailing through the interface
• audio & video communication features will be added soon
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10. Web 2.0 design
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11. Implementation
 Experimental method:
 The conception and implementation were done in parallel
 No specifications, only the clear objectives
 The platform was first opened a year ago with only the basic functions and then
tested in a continuous way, adding / deleting / modifying different elements
 The present state is still not the final one – constant evolution
 One moderator, in collaboration with TT officers and TT associates
 Communication:
 To attract users, one must start with networking
 Possible starting points:
- existing thematic events and networks established earlier on
- existing clusters and professional associations
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12. Main characteristics
 Online work environment
 Brings together collaborators from different organisations or distant
locations
 creates networking opportunities and centralises information related to the
domain
 Designed to support a national initiative to boost innovation in the sector
 Focus on users/community needs
 Heterogeneous users (also beyond the members of mobile services
initiative)
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13. Conclusions
 The mobile Jungle platform is very recent and will be further developed,
following the results of ongoing evaluations and tests
 The feedback of users is one of key elements of continuous development
 To keep the platform alive and attain the goals (synergies, leverage) is a hard
task which needs continuous efforts
 ~200 visitors per day, ~500 member accounts
 Too early to say if the objectives are achieved; while it is possible to measure
the information traffic, number of members and relations between them, it is
not the case for monitoring the number of businesses resulting from that
 Expanding to the European market and involving global players such as
Nokia, Ericsson etc. may be a key issue for the future of the initiative
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