Starlab
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Not to be confused with the Starlab Group or S.T.A.R. Labs.
Starlab NV/SA (DF1, for "Deep Future 1") was a multidisciplinary "blue sky" research institute established to serve as an incubator for long-term and basic research in the spirit of Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, Interval Research and MIT Media Lab. Its open and interdisciplinary culture has been oft-cited as an innovative effort to foster creativity between researchers, intended as an original, if ambitious, dream to create a utopian environment for the pursuit of forward-thinking scientific research. Starlab's primary headquarters were based in Brussels, Belgium (1996-2001) with a new division (Starlab Barcelona, a.k.a. DF2) established in July 2000 and still active today in Barcelona, Spain.
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[edit] Research culture
When I first arrived at Starlab and wondered what Starlab was, I asked a few questions. And somebody said to me, "Well, Starlab is a multidisciplinary research institute ... It's a think tank." I said, "But what is it?" and they said "Well, Starlab is a place where we think thoughts that haven't been thought before – where we think things, for the very first time."
—Jack Klaff, Discovery Channel special on Starlab, September 2000
At its peak, Starlab employed over 100 scientists from thirty-six nationalities, many of them leaders in their respective fields. Projects actively pursued on-site included intelligent clothing, stem cell research, emotics, transarchitecture, robotics, theoretical physics, e.g., the possibility of time travel, consciousness, quantum computation, art, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, new media, biophysics, materials science, protein folding, nanoelectronics, and wearable computing, to mention a few. These research lines were grouped under the acronym "BANG," Bits, Atoms, Neurons, Genes – a theme subsequently adopted by MIT Media Lab in 2002. Starlab's academic research partners included MIT, Oxford University, and Ghent University. The lab sponsored the Center for Quantum Computation at Oxford University, Merton College, the MIT Media Lab Digital Life Consortium, and organized several international conferences and open research symposia to stimulate cross-pollination between scientists.
[edit] Funding and consortia
Starlab's principal investors included venture capitalist Walter de Brouwer, founder and chief executive officer, MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, and Pythagorus investment fund manager Johan Konings. European Union Presence II initiative coordinator Walter Van de Velde served as chief scientific officer, while Giulio Ruffini was and still is DF2's scientific officer.
Much like the funding model employed by MIT Media Lab, academic and corporate partners received shared intellectual property rights to research and patents generated by the lab. Consortia members and sponsors included local and national governments, international corporations and private investors including NASA, the United States Air Force, the National Science Foundation, Levi Strauss, France Telecom, Adidas, Siemens, Philips, Energizer, Samsonite, Nokia, the Institut National de l'Audiovisuel and the European Union.
[edit] DF1 Closure and spinoffs
The original Starlab business model depended largely upon outside investment to sustain its operations and thus create the opportunity for deep innovation. While founded in hopes drawn from late 1990s Silicon Valley technology sector optimism, reduced enthusiasm following the collapse of the Internet "bubble economy" and the loss of a critical group of investors forced the lab to close its doors in summer 2001. Starlab's assets were liquidated to the highest bidders, and the expansive former embassy building inhabited by the lab was purchased by the Brussels regional government for future use in local research initiatives.
Starlab DF2, in Barcelona, Spain, adopted then a very different strategy to better ride the post-bubble storm. DF2 based survival and growth on direct contract work and very little investment, resulting in a more spartane, albeit slower growing, enterprise.
Philips purchased the intellectual property rights to intelligent clothing project i-wear, which won the Avantex 2000 Innovation Prize. Bioprocessors, a biotechnology spinoff, successfully transitioned to Silicon Valley. An IPTV license continues to generate revenue under an anonymous purchaser.
Starlab’s second lab in Barcelona, Spain, also known as DF2, survived the bubble thanks to initial contracts with ESA and with the support of the Catalan and Spanish Governments, and is located in the historic Fabra Observatory atop the mountains outside Barcelona. While maintaining the interdisciplinary spirit of Starlab Brussels, Starlab Barcelona focuses on Space and Neuroscience technologies and applications. Starlab Barcelona has recently been awarded the Barcelona Innovation prize and other related awards from ENDESA (for work related to http://eolimar.com) and from BMW Innovation.
[edit] PajamaNation
Pajamanation, a global marketplace for outsourcing microjobs, will launch in 50+ countries in 2007, with a mission statement which reads as follows:
Pajamanation® is a reverse-auction electronic market place for microjobs for PajamaWorkers (small jobs outsourced). It has the ambition to become the reference network for home-based micropreneurs in 50+ countries and the global portal and gateway for this new community.
According to their main international website, Pajamanation.com has four unique features:
Although there are many sites for freelancers in the world none has these four unique selling points:
- PJN does not charge any transaction fees
- PJN is for knowledge workers working from home (PajamaWorkers) and supports a new economic agenda of micropreneurs (entrepreneurs out of necessity) performing microjobs.
- PJN is a global initiative and will eventually encompass 50+ countries in five continents
- PJN's engine incorporates four years of experience in the PajamaWorker market with the techniques of the free market (reverse auctions)
[edit] Local sites
Pajamanation Belgium - http://pajamanation.be
Pajamanation UK - http://pajamanation.co.uk
Pajamanation Germany - http://pajamanation.de
Pajamanation Malaysia - http://pajamanation.com.my
[edit] Starlab today
Starlab Barcelona has maintained most of the values of DF1, although with much less dependence on external investment. The company focuses on Space and Neuroscience, arguably the two fundamental frontiers of the century. The company seeks to exploit synergies in technical development (sensors, algorithms, data processing, products) in order to address social needs and the market opportunities they create. Achievements to date include numerous products in Earth Observation technology (see http://gnss-r.com and http://oceanpal.com), Earth Observation services (http://marcoast.starlab.net, http://eolimar.com), products such as Oceanpal now distributed by the Starlab spin-off Star2Earth and Enobio, a wireless electrophysiology sensor employing nanotechnology.
[edit] Media coverage
Starlab was and still is frequently cited in the international press for its unconventional approach to scientific research, foregoing the traditional hierarchy of academic disciplines in favor of a more anarchic approach to interaction. The lab's research credos, "Deep Future" and "A place where 100 years means nothing," featured prominently in a 2001 Discovery Channel documentary. The lab has since become subject of a theatre play at the Edinburgh Festival, a Gartner case study, and has spawned an active alumni forum on Yahoo! Groups.
- BBC
- Nature
- CNN
- TIME
- Fastcompany
- Le Monde
- CNET
- Financial Times
- Radio Netherlands
- MorgenWeb
- Virtual Medical Worlds
- Admiroutes
- New Scientist
- Nanotechweb
[edit] References
- Discovery Channel documentary on Starlab
- Starlab Archive maintained by physicist Chris Duif
- Starlab Barcelona Space and Neuroscience, from technologies to applications
- MIT Center for Bits and Atoms announcement
- Starlab publications (incomplete listing)
- DF2 Library
[edit] Starlab alumni
(Sorted by last name, incomplete)
- Aseem Agarwala
- Christopher Altman
- Ozan Cakmakci
- Ivo Clarysse
- Christian Decker
- Chris Duif
- Christophe Fonteyne
- Hugo de Garis
- Nick Gogerty
- Gregg Jaeger
- Jack Klaff
- Serguei Krasnikov
- Kristof van Laerhoven
- Adam T. Lindsay
- Maarten Loose
- Leo de Penning
- Giulio Ruffini
- Erol Sahin
- Keith Still
- Jack Tuszynski
- Richard Wheeler
- Roman Zapatrin
