Innovation: Open Technology Laboratories (OTELO)

Austria

AAI Domains:

• Independent, healthy and secure living (lifelong learning)

• Participation in society (voluntary activities, social connectedness)

The impact of technology on societies continues to advance at a great pace with a wide range of effects. It can play a positive role in building social connections through making communication easier, it can enhance learning opportunities and remotely monitor health indicators for a range of conditions.

Many of these technological developments emerge from large corporations or public-private partnership projects but there has historically been scope for individual inventors or small groups of people to develop innovative ideas into practical solutions. There is still considerable scope for people to work together to develop new ideas using technology for socially beneficial purposes that can contribute to active ageing.

Open Technology Laboratories (OTELO) started in the towns of Gmunden (population c.13,000) and Vöcklabruck (population c.12,000) in upper Austria in 2010 and are spaces that provide free to use basic infrastructure for people of all ages to work together on experimental ideas and projects. There is now a network of 16 OTELO spaces across Austria with the local municipality providing the space and basic infrastructure along with scope for leisure and recreational activities.

The aim of OTELO is offer a combination of open access to a laboratory work space – known as a node – with the social aim of community building by complementing social and leisure activities with science and technology. The individual OTELO’s are managed and operated by a volunteer committee who provide support for people and groups to develop ideas into viable projects, some of which can become marketable products or the basis for a business. Individuals and groups contribute modest fees towards the operation of the facility and provide additional resources that they need to develop and test their ideas.

They are open to people of all ages and look to work in partnership with local schools and colleges, universities and businesses in developing new ideas, testing them and sharing knowledge and learning opportunities particularly with children and young people. For example, several OTELO’s offer Kids Experience Technology programmes that enable school age children to learn about science and technology through interactive experiences that are intended to be fun and inspiring.

There is also scope for communal social activities such as community gardening, alternative local currencies that operate alongside people developing solar cookers and alternative forms of mobility. OTELO’s also receive income from grants and donations in kind from the other corporate sector and other institutions to keep user costs low.

In relation to active ageing, OTELO’s offer the opportunity for voluntary activity in the operation and management of such institutions. It provides open access to lifelong learning opportunities in science and technology for people of all ages supplemented by leisure and recreational activities with a social purpose dimension to enhance community capacity through constructive and enjoyable interaction.

Open Technology Laboratories website