Starlab

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with the Starlab Group or S.T.A.R. Labs.

Starlab NV/SA 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. The laboratory's open and cross-disciplinary culture has been oft-cited (see media coverage, below) 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 from 1996-2001 – with a second base of operations, Starlab Barcelona – established in July 2000 and still active today in the Fabra Observatory atop the mountains outside 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, quantum information, 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. Giulio Ruffini continues to serve as scientific officer for Starlab's Barcelona division.

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] Closure and reorganization

Starlab's initial business model depended largely upon influx of third-party investment to sustain its operations. 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. The lab'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.

The surviving research division in Barcelona, Starlab DF2, or "Deep Future 2," then adopted a radically different business strategy, focusing on specialized, direct contracts with ESA under support of the Catalan and Spanish Governments. While maintaining the interdisciplinary spirit of Starlab Brussels, Starlab Barcelona focuses on space and neuroscience technologies and applications. The lab has most recently been awarded the Barcelona Innovation prize and other related awards from ENDESA and BMW Innovation.

[edit] Spinoffs

Much of the intellectual property generated by Starlab research projects was purchased by investors or continued on at university and research centers worldwide. 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. Pajamanation, a global marketplace for outsourcing microjobs, launched in fifty countries in 2006.

[edit] Starlab today

Starlab Barcelona has maintained the core values of its parent organization, albeit wih higher specialization and reduced dependence on external investment. The present-day organization focuses on applied research initiatives in space and neuroscience. Innovations to date include Earth Observation technology, Earth Observation services, Star2Earth and Enobio, a wireless electrophysiology sensor constructed using carbon nanotube arrays. Starlab Barcelona currently maintains an active news and announcements weblog at Starlab.org,

This is Starlab's blog. Starlab is a company transforming science into technologies with a profound positive impact. We do research on space and neuroscience, two fundamental themes of the Millennium. We are passionate about science and we do believe that it is the key to planet welfare – human and beyond. We want to be pioneers, to explore and work at the frontier of human knowledge. Here we share with you some of the things we learn during the journey."

— Starlab.org, May 2008

[edit] Media coverage

Starlab has been frequently cited by 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.

[edit] Starlab alumni

[edit] References