In 2004 mobile internet was non-existent. Yet, we were convinced that mobile applications would conquer the world. We knew that if we wanted to give the Flanders region a chance in this new market, we had to take a headstart. That's where the initiative of i-City was founded.

Project description

As a collaboration between the Flemish Governement, Microsoft, Telenet, Concentra Media, Fujitsu, Siemens, HP and Cisco, i-City had a lot of potential. The project took off as a non-profit organisation with only 1 goal: create the biggest Living Lab in the world. The purpose of this lab was to provide a testing ground with real endusers, real network infrastructure, real mobile devices and real applications. We used WiFi networks to cover our test city (Hasselt). For mobile devices we used the first generations of Windows Mobile smartphones. For the applications we created our own platform. A partner ecosystem was set up in which partners could contribute applications that could be used by the endusers. The model was very much like the appstore that Apple would introduce 2 years later. Even the user interface of the platform was quite similar to the iPhone.

Project result

During it's 2 year lifespan, the project managed to deploy the network, devices and testusers. The application platform was put in place and numerous applications created. When the project finished, a number of spin-off companies were put in the market and the Living Lab was taken up into a bigger research entity (IBBT) were it became the lead of the European Commission Living Labs organisation.