Perhaps the biggest innovation in Digital City isn’t actually a product but a place. The C-Lab is the heart of Samsung’s Digital City. It’s a bright, colorful workspace with a mission to cultivate the next big idea.
Samsung says any employee can apply to enter the C-Lab and become an innovation leader regardless of job title and experience. Ideas are submitted through an online ideas platform. Employees with winning applications can then enter the lab to refine a prototype until they are field tested in the real world and are eventually deemed fit for market. A company policy allows employees to spin off successful C-Lab projects into separate, independently-managed companies, which Samsung supports with seed money. Samsung typically retains a minority stake in the spun-off startups.
Since the C-Lab opened six years ago, more than 250 successful projects have been developed including the “nemonic” mini printer, which prints photos and memos as sticky notes without ink or toner. The company now making the compact smart printer, Mangoslab, spun out of Samsung’s C-Lab and launched as a full-fledged startup in 2016.
#Samsung #SamsungElectronics #DigitalCity #CLab #incuabor #ideas #nemonic #Mangoslab #CNN #CNNBusiness #innovation (photos by @junmichaelpark)
