diff --git a/create_JupyterLab_kernel.sh b/create_JupyterLab_kernel.sh
index 6f21c9eac7ff9c2ce67cceb1c713aefa21ed0aef..eef8e777108d40c016f2a1d9f894de2879534771 100644
--- a/create_JupyterLab_kernel.sh
+++ b/create_JupyterLab_kernel.sh
@@ -20,7 +20,12 @@ spack repo add /srv/$INSTALLATION_ROOT/ebrains-spack-builds
 #spack env activate $SPACKIFIED_ENV
 
 module use /srv/$INSTALLATION_ROOT/spack/share/spack/modules/linux-centos7-broadwell/
+module use /srv/$INSTALLATION_ROOT/spack/share/spack/modules/linux-centos7-x86_64/
 source /srv/$INSTALLATION_ROOT/spack/var/spack/environments/$SPACKIFIED_ENV/loads
+# add also user's .local python3.8 packages to allow package installation at runtime
+# by the user using pip
+export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/opt/app-root/src/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages
+export PATH=$PATH:/opt/app-root/src/.local/bin
 
 # capture the env after spack activation
 cd /opt/app-root/src
@@ -49,7 +54,7 @@ chmod +x $LAB_KERNEL_PATH/bin/env.sh
 mkdir $LAB_KERNEL_PATH/spack_python_kernel_release_20210930
 cat <<EOF >$LAB_KERNEL_PATH/spack_python_kernel_release_20210930/kernel.json
 {
- "argv": ["$LAB_KERNEL_PATH/bin/env.sh", "{connection_file}"],
+ "argv": ["$LAB_KERNEL_PATH/bin/env.sh", "{connection_file}", "--profile=default"],
  "display_name": "EBRAINS_release_v0.1_202109",
  "name": "spack_python_kernel_release_20210930",
  "language": "python"
diff --git a/packages/clb-nb-utils/package.py b/packages/clb-nb-utils/package.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..d8f8452ced11c23ea408ebaad11022bdfc60a31d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/clb-nb-utils/package.py
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+from spack import *
+
+# Usage
+# from clb_nb_utils import oauth
+# oauth.get_token()
+class ClbNbUtils(PythonPackage):
+    url      = 'https://github.com/HumanBrainProject/clb-nb-utils/archive/refs/heads/master.zip'
+    maintainers = ['akarmas']
+    version('0.1.0','aa079ed0a8c4806db4657a6e7b534f4d')
+    depends_on('python@3.8:', type=('build','run'))
+    depends_on('py-setuptools', type=('build','run'))
+    depends_on('py-requests', type=('build','run'))
diff --git a/spack.yaml b/spack.yaml
index 451e6a5498b532a090701a1f420bf289a5884c3c..3a7f360946bde120b74d1f38aae4b22b27c445f7 100644
--- a/spack.yaml
+++ b/spack.yaml
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ spack:
     - py-ipython %gcc@10.3.0
     - py-ipykernel %gcc@10.3.0
     - py-notebook %gcc@10.3.0
+    # Collab utils
+    - clb-nb-utils@0.1.0 %gcc@10.3.0
     # General
     - py-pip %gcc@10.3.0
     - py-numpy %gcc@10.3.0