Informatica Trentina S.p.A (http://www.infotn.it) is an enterprise of around 300 people, owned by public shareholders, mainly the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy. INFOTN is in charge of the ICT needs of its shareholders and it acts as Regional Catalyst for Innovation in ICT through “Trentino as a Lab” (TasLab) initiative. TasLab is a cooperation cluster whose goal is to develop a regional innovation network to bring together researchers, industries and institutions and to enable, throughout a particular innovation infrastructure, a continuous and systematic innovation process on the territory as a driver of socio-economical development. As coordinator of TasLab, INFOTN has been in charge the development of the ICT innovation strategy of the Autonomous Province of Trento promoting services in each ICT domain, i.e. eInclusion, eEnvironment, eRescue, eGovernment, throughout the collaboration among the innovation stakeholders. The peculiar aspect of our innovation framework is the presence of careful and innovative Lead Users, represented by the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Municipalities of Trentino and they representations bodies (Consortium), willing to experiment innovative ICT solutions and the availability of technology test-beds for the development and validation of new services and products in real-life user-focused environments. For this reason, INFOTN can give a strong contribution accelerating the regional development with ICT-innovation-strategies, in particular sharing pro-actively the innovation strategies, models and methodologies developed inside the projects towards the main actors, namely: citizens, SMEs, Public Bodies, Research Centres etc. TasLab is Funding and Effective Member of the European Network of Living Labs International Association (ENOLL Aisbl), in which Council is represented and founding member of the Italian Network of Living Labs, whose vision and mission totally embraces the project’s targets. INFOTN has coordinated several innovation projects. The most relevant are:

• Casalpina (completed in 2006) on semantic interoperability in social care and health applications.
• eProcurement (completed in 2008) on end users and aims at design and development of new goods and services purchasing model for the Autonomous Province of Trento.
• The design of “Trentino as a Lab innovation network”, project co-financed by ESF, aimed to develop the organisational and technological infrastructure of the Taslab innovation Network.

Role in the project

INFOTN will ensure involvement of final users in the pilot, namely the Consortium of Mountains’ Water Basins – Bacini Imbriferi Montani dell’Adige (BIM Adige), which collects 129 Municipalities into the Consortium whose mission is to foster rural development throughout the exploitation of renewable energy sources and the smart management of environment. More specifically INFOTN will ensure:

• Pilot coordination, as the coordinator of the local living lab, by involving local stakeholders.
• Pilot validation, by involving final users and by promoting the adoption of user centric approach.
• Communication and Dissemination, through its local and international network of expert and partners.

Key Staff involved in the project

Dr Pavel Shvaiko is an innovation and research project manager at INFOTN. He holds a PhD from the University of Trento. He has co-authored and co-edited a number of books, contributed to, and published in various international journals, conferences and workshops in the fields of Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems and GIScience. He participated in several EU, national, and industrial projects, e.g., Knowledge Web NoE (FP6), OpenKnowledge STREP (FP6), SGC - semantic geo-catalog (regional project) on the themes of semantic heterogeneity management and knowledge management for geographic data. Ivan Pilati is an innovation and research project manager at INFOTN. He has a Master degree in “eBusiness and ICT strategic management” from Polytechnic of Turin, and degree in Economics - University of Trento - Italy. He has worked in USA and Spain, and then in Fiat Engineering Spa as Business Manager and Project Manager. He was CIO and ISSO in Fiat Engineering Spa and Maire Tecnimont Spa. Valentina Ferrari holds a Ph.d in Environmental Economics from Trento University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She got a master’s degree in Economics. She worked as consultant for the CREAF (Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Application) in Barcelona, the Centre for Alpine Ecology in Trento, the Centro Studi Demani Civici e Proprietà Collettive in Trento and the Trento University Economics Department. She worked for Centro Ricerche Fiat and for TIS - Techno Innovation South Tyrol in Bolzano. Since 2008 she works for INFOTN working as Innovation and Research Project Manager.