This is a CTP of initiative: Living Labs - Sfax Smart Living Lab (Tunisia)
This CTP (CTP4) is about the fourth robotic competition – RoboComp’2013, which took place in December 16, 2013 in Sousse, Tunisia. This competition really took the Chair of Innovation and SSCLL to another level and increased its visibility and impact considerably. It was organized by the Research Groups on Intelligent Machines - ReGIM Lab jointly with the International Conference on Individual and Collective Behaviors in Robotics (ICBR’2013). The conference was held from the 15th till 17th of December and included the competition on its second day. More details about the event are presented on this website: http://icbr.regim.org/
RoboComp’2013 aimed to bring together students, young researchers, professionals and robotics experts from all around the world to exchange ideas and share problem solving strategies related to robotics. It is a global competition that also aims to promote the robotics field development in Tunisia (robocomp.regim.org, 2016).
The competition was held in ‘El Mouradi Palace’ hotel in Sousse city in Tunisia. More than 800 attendants were present in the event from diverse sectors in society: industry, students, academia, robotic fans etc. There were 580 participants from diverse countries taking part in the competition, with its seven different tracks, as follows:
These tracks’ choices were influenced by previous international robotics competitions e.g. World Robotic Olympiad (WRO) attended by ReGIM Lab members in preceding years. More information about the WRO can accessed via: http://wro.ieee.tn/
Among the attendants were: the Minister of Information and Communication Technologies and the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research as well as the Governor of the city of Sousse. Moreover, RoboComp’2013 was reported by at least three national radio channels and two national television channels, in addition to several press articles covering the event. Compared to previous robotic competitions organized by the ReGIM Lab, RoboComp’2013 was the largest in terms of number of attendants and participants, competition tracks diversity, and media coverage. Moreover, it included for the first time participants and attendants from international backgrounds who were attending the ICBR conference.
The aim of organizing this competition was to show industry partners, society as well as other academic and research institutions that the Chair of Innovation is still there, and to showcase the ReGIM Lab’s capabilities and products. Moreover, the purpose was to send a message at the national level, that the university’s role is more than teaching and conducting research, but also facilitating innovation and engagement with the economic and societal environment. After this CTP the ReGIM lab has become known for organizing this competition every year. Moreover, the competition prepared Tunisian finalists to participate for the first time in the World Robotic Olympiad, an international robotics competition, which was conducted in Russia in 2014.
Organizing such a large event was facilitated by the roles of different actors.
First, the ReGIM Lab as an entity was the initiator and organizer of the event. An organizing committee was formed from volunteers, who were mainly ReGIM lab members to start organizing the event four months in advance. The committee was responsible for both the technical competitions specifications as well as all logistical and administrative aspects. Roles were assigned for each member and included technical aspects such as preparing technical rules and requirements for the competition, for instance, for robotics, for participants, for the different tracks etc. Non-technical items covered answering inquiries of participants, managing registrations, preparation of platform and facilitating the whole event’s program. Moreover, for ensuring an event of that size to be successful, chairs were appointed to oversee and lead the different technical and organizational categories, these include: General, competition, communication, organization, evaluating, sponsorship, local arrangement, international contacts, and publicity chairs. These Chairs included ReGIM Lab members, but also members from other Tunisian universities, such as University of Gabes, University of Sousse and international universities, such as University of Catalonia, Spain and University of Toulon, France, as well as non-academic professionals. The ReGIM Lab covered the finances of the event from the funding it had acquired at that time, since no additional funding was received. The event was very costly to the ReGIM lab, costs covered renting of the venue, transporting of the platforms and devices, monetary awards to winning teams, promotion of the event.
Another relevant role was played by international institutions and associations: the Scientific Association for the Support of Research and Technological Innovation (ASARIT) administered the public funding of ReGIM Lab and managed the spending procedures. The IEEE Robotics & Automation Society (RAS) Tunisia Chapter network was used to promote the event and give it a scientific and international label. The IEEE also provided a limited financial support of around 4000$ as one of their clubs supports such kinds of events.
The Ministries’ role was rather motivational and political; Ministers attended the event to prove their interest and care for innovation and advanced research to the people and increase their popularity in this unstable political period. Their attendance certainly put the event more in the media spotlight and encouraged future industrial collaborations. Despite that the ReGIM Lab organizing committee sent proposals for funding for the event to the Ministries, no financial support was received from them.
Several events were crucial for the CTP to happen. Previous robotic competitions: RoboComp’2010 (CTP 1), RoboComp’2011 and 2012 organized by the ReGIM Lab were important events for this CTP. The ReGIM Lab built an extensive experience in planning and organizing competition events, whether on the technical competition level or on the logistical and administrative level. Two of the three competitions were organized in hotels in different cities from Sfax, which was similar to RoboComp’2013 (this CTP). The size and scope of the three previous competitions was smaller, in terms of attendance, participation in competition, tracks of competition, international attendance, media coverage etc. However, the concept of the previous events was the same as this one in 2013, which helped the members use their previous lessons learnt in the planning and organizing of RoboComp’2013.
The event was not conducted in the ReGIM ‘living lab’ location, although the ReGIM venue has become a stable and independent place for the activities of the lab. However, CTP 3 - the relocation of the Chair of Innovation in the living lab ReGIM- played an important, but rather indirect role in boosting the success of RoboComp’2013. The stability and tangibility realized for the Chair and the living lab concept, helped the team become more confident and aware of their laboratory’s capabilities and achievements, and develop a clearer vision and strategies.This confidence and stability helped them in the organization process and enabled them to focus more on creating a successful and impressive event.
In addition, the ICBR Conference which was organized also by ReGIM lab at the same time and venue of RoboComp’2013, positively impacted this CTP. In fact, the conference brought together researchers, students and academics in the field of robotics from all around the world. It had a diverse and rich program including research results presentations, plenary discussions facilitated by experts and researchers from different universities worldwide. And it included social events, and the competition of course. This increased the number and diversity of attendance of the event and participation in the competition, which was centered in the middle of the conference program.
The main event induced from this CTP, was the participation of Tunisian competitors in the World Robotics Olympiad WRO'2014 in Russia for the first time, and later the WRO’2015. In fact, RoboComp’2013 was conducted on a higher level, closer to the WRO standards with the aim to qualify winning teams to participate in the international competition of the WRO. The two to three top winner of the RoboComp in each track, were qualified to participate in a second round of competition finals, conducted in October of the same year. The second round of the finals was conducted using the same criteria and rules of the WRO, to prepare the participants for in the real WRO. In addition, the participants were given some trainings in the robotic field by the ReGIM Lab with the help of IEEE volunteers to develop them to participate.
Another induced event after this CTP was the postponing of the next RoboComp to 2015, instead of 2014. This was mainly triggered by the lacking resources left to the ReGIM Lab after spending all their funds for RoboComp’2013. Moreover, there was a satisfaction feeling after RoboComp’2013, after an impressive event was organized proving the capacities and success of the ReGIM Lab. Further on, the lacking political stability in 2014 made organizing a competition more difficult. In fact, there were parliament elections in October and presidential in November 2014.
After RoboComp’2013 Sfax University started to think about funding future competitions organized by the ReGIM Lab. In fact, RoboComp’2015 was held at the Sfax University and covered by its funding.
This CTP didn’t include noticeable contestation except for ordinary logistical and administrative problems related to organizing such an event.
Internally, within the organizing committee and all other volunteers helping facilitate the event, a smooth and enthusiastic working environment was present. The extensive experience of the ReGIM Lab in organizing robotic competitions certainly helped overcome many challenges and use previous lessons learnt. However, there were new kinds of problems and challenges facing the organization committee, related to the fact that this event was quite large compared to their previously organized competitions. Moreover, problems that were rather typical and previously experienced by the members of the organization committee, were sometimes magnified because of the large scope of the event. Wael Ouarde explains that they had many registrations for participation in the competition that were declined afterwards when it was too late, which caused some last minute restructuring of the competition needed. Moreover, there were persons who came to the event without prior registration and many other problems. All these challenges caused stress and tensions to the organizers, but they succeeded to deal with them and created finally a fruitful event.
Externally there was no direct contestation experienced by the ReGIM Lab members. The organizers made sure there was coordination with the government and ministries early enough to encourage their support. In fact, invitation letters were sent to the relevant political figures and to media representatives, and follow-up contacts took place afterwards. However, the non-provision of any financial support for the competition, even if just symbolic, despite sending funding requests, was a disappointment to the ReGIM Lab members. But they also understood that the political situation was not stable enough which made such funding more difficult to acquire and they managed to sponsor the event with their own funds and other minor contributions from external sponsors.
This competition was anticipated as a CTP, however its impacts were not all foreseen.
Since the idea of planning the competition emerged the team anticipated it would be a large show to demonstrate their capabilities and scope of work, and prove that they are active and successful after moving the Chair to the ReGIM Lab. Moreover, they knew this event would further promote the living lab concept and would make their vision clearer to the external world. They aimed and succeeded in acquiring high recognition on the national and international level. They had planned in advance that this competition would qualify winning participants to take part in the international WRO’2014.
Despite planning for a large event the ReGIM Lab team didn’t expect it to be of the actual scale or impact. The high number of attendants and participants, as well as the wide media coverage by different national television and radio channels was not predicted. In fact, the 800+ attendants were much more than the aimed for 500, and in previous competitions there used to be 200-300 attendants and not more. And for first time the competition included international attendants and participants.
The Ministers attendance was easier to arrange compared to previous competitions, as both were personal contacts of Adel Alimi and another professor of the ReGIM Lab. Adel Alimi states that he knew that the Ministers were keen to come to prove their activity and care for such an initiative. In fact, the Ministers knew they were about to leave the government in the coming months due to the large oppositions against the government at that time. And this actually happened in the following month, namely in January 2014. The funding expectations from the Ministries were not met, which caused some disappointment to the team, particularly after funding proposals were sent to Ministries providing different funding options with varying amounts to give them more flexibility. However, the funding proposal acquired from the Sfax University to sponsor future competitions was a great, unexpected impact of the CTP.
This CTP helped the ReGIM Lab team have a clearer vision of what the concept of living lab means. As Adel Alimi explains “We were working under the concept of the living lab without fully understanding it. The concept of open innovation is new; involvement of the people and users with the researcher to give them part in the design and conceptualization.” After the competition the concept started to become more obvious to those organizing the competition as well as those attending or participating in it. The message of the additional role universities have in facilitating open innovation and engaging the outside environment was broadly disseminated.
Lessons learnt from organizing such as large event were extensive and were used when conducting the following competition in 2015. Instead of organizing the competition in a hotel it was organized afterwards in the Sfax University in order to save the efforts and resources used to transport everything over large distances to a hotel. This was only possible after the University has offered to sponsor the competition and use its facilities for the event.
Moreover, the team learned diverse techniques for communication with participants especially those who might cause some inconveniences for the organizing committee, such as those who change their mind in the last minute, or those who are aggressive and depressed after loosing a competition. It was noticed that the organization team would highly benefit if its capacities were developed for arranging such large events. So trainings for conflict, risk and event management, and others were given to the members of the organizing committee before the following competition planning started. Another lesson learnt was the importance of implementing a registration fee for attendants and participants in the competition. This proved to limit those who are more serious and interested in the event to register, eliminated last minute cancellations as well as helped covering event costs.
Finally, it was understood that an enhancement of the competence of participants is crucial to be able to enter the WRO. Thus, technical trainings were facilitated in partnership with IEEE to participants such as using technologies like ‘Labview’ software. In 2015 it was decided to make the competition more difficult, so that participants are better prepared to participate in WRO.
References
Available at: http://wro.ieee.tn/ [Accessed 2016].
Available at: http://icbr.regim.org/ [Accessed 2016].
Available at: http://robocomp.regim.org/ [Accessed 2016].
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