Living Labs (LILA): An Innovative Paradigm for Community Development—Project of “XploR” Cane for the Blind

The community development in different domains (business, education, welfare, etc.) has been the prime focus over the last decade due to the evolution of digital technologies and the shift in working patterns. However, many public and private investments have failed to produce sustaining and real value from them. The observed deficiencies which are causing the failure of community development projects ranged from initiation within the artificial and closed laboratory to open learning environments. The community development is entailed without understanding the real community needs, community’s value chain, and potential problems with limited interactions. These shortcomings have resulted in failure to develop effective, prosperous, and world class communities, leveraging the new innovative and powerful approaches. An approach to developing collaborative systems, called Living Lab (LILA), is discussed in this paper and this approach has empowered and engaged the communities (students, lecturers, computer scientists, electronics engineers, visually impaired and blind people) to experiment and learn the innovative solutions of their real-world problems. The theme of this innovation-led approach is to embed community-driven solution within the communities. This paper presents the actual framework for the establishment of a Living Lab using specific case study at Birmingham City University (BCU), along with its impact on community development. This research determines the key features that the visually impaired would find useful in a mobility cane called “XploR”. The smart cane incorporates facial recognition technology to alert the user when they are approaching a relative or friend from up to 10 m away. This is a revolutionary ‘smart’ cane enabling blind people to instantly identify friends and family. The cane also features GPS functionality to aid navigation. This project is part of LILA, a European initiative encouraging entrepreneurship and fostering internationalisation.