Partnership Program

The long term goal of the i-Brussels project is the deployment of wireless services in selected city area’s and the design of a Living Laboratory on the campuses of VUB for the development of applications and services based on wireless communication technology, i.e. the creation of an experimentation environment in which new technology is given shape in real life contexts and in which users are considered co-producers.

After a feasibility study and the analysis of the Brussels context in phase 1, phase 2 now concentrates on demonstrators on campus (e.g. a wellness-fitness social community supported by wearable sensors; the way-finder on campus; a museum project based on context based interrogation of objects; a total radiation monitor; queue monitoring and dynamic menu consultation system in the university restaurant; multimodal communication system coupled to the university learning platform, …).

The wireless campus … an open innovation platform supporting educational innovation and long term partnerships with industry, a test bench for the newest technology. The Wireless Campus project is an invitation addressed to the creativity of the different communities on the campus and its immediate neighborhood acting as a micro cosmos of real society. It has to support the co-existence of commercial and societal services and acts as test bench prior to deployment of the applications in targeted areas of the city. The sustainable infrastructure will contribute to structural innovation and should ensure attraction of new talents, new business, new students, and it will contribute to long term embedding of knowledge in the Brussels Region because of its unique properties.

The drivers behind the project are the research group SMIT (communication sciences) and the department ETRO (technology partner) jointly participating in IBBT iLab.o (Institute of Broad Band Technology), along with several other VUB research groups.

iLab.o helps you to set up large scale innovation projects for testing during a longer timeframe in real life environments and involving a large end user community. We provide access to a wireless infrastructure, a software platform, and a population of test users to help you develop new and exciting mobile applications and services.