Wittenborg Hosts Living Labs Session

Wittenborg’s 2nd Erasmus+ Project “INnovation in the FURniture Industry in the Era of Circular Economy (INFURI)” is in full swing. As part of the project activities, Wittenborg will be hosting two upcoming Living Labs sessions with external stakeholders in the coming weeks. One session will be with furniture manufacturing SMEs and the other with furniture end users. The INFURI project was officially launched in February this year (Read the article here) and involves 6 other European countries. The aim of the project is to spread innovative and sustainable circular business models in the furniture industry with the focus on SMEs. 

Living Labs will consist of a user-centred, open-innovation ecosystem, operating in a territorial context and integrating concurrent research and innovation processes in a private-public-people approach. The purpose of the Living Labs session or the ‘co-creation’ session with end users is to demonstrate how circularity can be integrated in furniture products from the end-user’s perspective and to identify the key aspects related to the circular economy. More specifically, it is to identify potential design improvements in a selected furniture type with a particular focus on functional innovations (services) that can contribute to circular economy.

Hosts Excited About Event

For furniture and end-users, the Living Labs session will be held on Thursday, 29th April, 2021, from 19:00 to 21:00. The session will be hosted by Wittenborg’s CEO, Maggie Feng and EU Project Coordinator & Junior Researcher, Aydan Ismayilova. Excited about the event, Ismayilova said,” The project has already drawn attention of the local furniture manufacturing community. In addition, our event with end users will be a great opportunity to explore the perspective of the end furniture users. The session will serve as a perfect platform for customers to share how they see the integration of circularity in furniture products, as well to contribute to the design of a more sustainable and eco-friendly product”.

Interested parties can register via the online form here. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the number of participants is strictly limited and it will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

WUP 18/4/2021
by Hanna Abdelwahab
©WUAS Press