Companies from the real estate and construction sector met virtual technology start-ups in the VINOS project of Tampere University of Technology. Together, they reflected on what kind of innovations new technologies offer and how this will benefit business operations.

What kind of problem was the project trying to solve? 

As yet, the real estate and construction sector does not take advantage of the potential of digital innovations to the extent made possible by current technologies. This project investigated the opportunities provided by virtual technologies in customer value production and the streamlining of processes in the different stages of a property's life cycle.

The project was aimed at creating a co-creation model to enable rapid application of the possibilities provided by new technologies to the traditional sector. The activities in the model would be based on co-creation between start-ups and traditional companies. 

Objective: Integrating virtual technologies into innovations in the real estate and construction sector

The main purpose of the project was to help companies in the real estate and construction sector in the development of digital business by taking advantage of co-creation methods and platforms. The project also investigated the development needs related to current virtual technologies to make their utilisation more efficient also in the real estate and construction sector.

What was done in the project? 

The co-creation workshops organised in the project focused particularly on investigating the beginning of the innovation process. The intention was to gain ideas for the further processing of companies' VR/AR innovations. In addition, the impact of co-creation and an open innovation model on the generation of ideas was examined in the workshops.

The project was implemented using Corelab, the new open co-creation platform for the built environment developed by Tampere University of Technology. Corelab brings the traditional companies, start-ups, research and students together to develop and generate new business. Corelab creates new cooperation networks, new digital innovations and new digital business activity in the real estate and construction business.

Who benefits?

The results of the project benefit small and medium-sized enterprises in the real estate and construction sector as the project describes how it is possible to start the development of digital business. A master's thesis written by Tuomas Kankaanpää will be published on the results of the project, so the results will be public and available for everyone to use. First and foremost, the results will be used in the Diili project, in which the development work will be continued.

What were the outcomes of the experiment? 

As a result of this project, a preliminary model of the innovation process was created for the generation of new services and operating models based on virtual technologies in the real estate and construction sector. In addition, several challenges were identified regarding the development of digital business activities in companies.