Wazoku Blog

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Waltham, MA – InnoCentive Inc., the pioneer in crowdsourced innovation and Challenge Driven InnovationTM announced they were chosen to collaborate with NASA on their open innovation initiatives in human space exploration.

NASA is turning to the public and crowdsourcing for outside-the-box thinking about human space exploration challenges with a series of 10 new NASA Open Innovation Service (NOIS) Contracts.

InnoCentive is proud to be included in the NASA crowdsourcing initiative for outside-the-box thinking in human space exploration. “We have partnered with NASA since 2009, by tapping our worldwide crowd to successfully solve several NASA challenges. We look forward to continuing our partnership and commend NASA for supplementing the great thinking and science at NASA with crowdsourced help. It is hard to imagine a more exciting set of topics for our crowd than the frontier of human space exploration,” stated InnoCentive Chairman and CEO, Craig Jones.

The first challenges to be launched under the new contract will seek new algorithms to improve Robonaut’s tool use in novel ways that could take advantage of materials found on asteroids, the moon or Mars for both space and Earth applications. Future challenges will seek help in developing improved textiles for planetary exploration spacesuits and other useful technologies as NASA continues its evolvable Journey to Mars strategy.

The total value of all contracts combined is $20 million over five years.

The challenges will be managed under the umbrella of the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) which was established by NASA and Harvard University in 2010 and consists of various open innovation platforms and competitions. The idea is to create the most innovative, efficient and optimal solutions for specific, real-world challenges being faced by NASA researchers. The NTL offers an on-line virtual facility for NASA researchers to “order” a solution just like they would order laboratory tests or supplies.

NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation was established with support from the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy to assist federal agencies in using new tools such as prizes to solve tough, mission-critical problems. The Center provides guidance to selected agencies on open innovation initiatives, from problem definition, to incentive design, to post-submission evaluation of solutions. The end-to-end service allows agencies to rapidly experiment with these new methods before standing up their own capabilities and captures best practices, case studies and successful collaborative and distributed innovation methods.

About InnoCentive

InnoCentive crowdsources innovation solutions from the world’s smartest people, who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy and scientific challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based innovation management platform, help clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For over a decade, organizations such as Astra Zeneca, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, NASA, Procter & Gamble, Thomson Reuters, and several government agencies in the U.S. and Europe have partnered with InnoCentive. Learn more at www.innocentive.com

Contacts
InnoCentive

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Washington, D.C. – All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) announced Thursday the launch of “Enabling Writers,” a $100,000 prize competition to incentivize the design of technology that helps writers draft materials to improve reading skills of children in developing countries.

The global competition seeks to spur the development of software solutions that allow authors to easily write and publish texts in mother tongue languages to help early-grade students learn to read. To solve this important challenge, ACR GCD aims to attract individuals, companies and communities from all fields, but especially the software development, digital literacy and education communities.

One of the main barriers to improving children’s reading skills is the lack of appropriate and engaging reading materials in local languages, meaning children are unable to get the reading practice they need in the language they know best.

“Literacy is the cornerstone of economic and social development—but millions of children around the world still lack basic access to books in their native language,” said Christie Vilsack, Senior Advisor for International Education for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “To strengthen global literacy we need to first bolster access to suitable early-grade reading materials, and that means starting at the beginning by making it easier, faster and more affordable to produce age- and language-appropriate books that kids want to read.”

The ACR GCD partners: USAID, World Vision and the Australian Government, have created the ‘Enabling Writers’ prize competition to drive the development of new software technologies—and the improvement of existing programs—that make it easier, cheaper and faster to write high-quality early-grade reading materials.

The prize competition, powered by InnoCentive, a global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems, is one of several technology-for-literacy competitions that ACR GCD will launch in 2014. The prize competition format, newly implemented in Round 2 of ACR GCD, is part of the initiative’s strategy to expand its network of innovators and solvers tackling specific problems where an injection of innovation, a new approach, or a new product will move the needle in getting all children reading. ‘Enabling Writers’ will award a grand prize of $100,000 for software that helps authors create books and other reading materials for students after receiving less than 20 hours of training. Applicants must design a solution or product that provides user-friendly directions and prompts in a common national language, while allowing authors to write in local languages.

After the submission period closes, three finalists will receive feedback and awards of $12,000 each. After having incorporated the judges’ feedback, their innovations will be piloted and reviewed in three countries with ACR GCD partner programs. The highest performing software will win a grand prize of $100,000.

Today, the ACR GCD also launched its multi-million dollar Round 2 grant competition for technology-supported education innovations that leapfrog existing infrastructure challenges to reach early-grade learners.

Launched in 2011, ACR GCD calls on innovators around the world to help develop scalable solutions to increase literacy rates among children in developing countries.

To learn more about the ‘Enabling Writers’ prize or the Round 2 grant competition, go to www.allchildrenreading.org.

About InnoCentive

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. For more than a decade, leading commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve pressing problems. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com.

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Waltham, MA – InnoCentive, Inc. the global leader in open innovation crowdsourcing competitions, and The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), today announced the Oil-Sol Challenge to expand the use of Dow’s novel oil-soluble polyalkylene glycol (oil-soluble PAG) technology. The Challenge will award a payout of $15,000. Solvers can submit entries beginning December 5th, 2013 through the contest web page www.oilsolchallenge.com.

While Dow has identified industrial and automotive lubricants as markets for oil-soluble PAGs, the chemistry has potential for a much wider market. This Challenge will serve as an opportunity for industry experts to collaborate, innovate and problem-solve – validating new applications and markets where oil-soluble PAGs can offer clear advantages.

“Dow has consistently been an innovator, bringing useful and important products to market for many years. They understand that crowdsourcing ideas to spur research and development can lead to better solutions faster,” said Alph Bingham, co-founder and board member of InnoCentive. “This Challenge enables Dow to tap into InnoCentive’s diverse network of hundreds of thousands of Solvers who can work collaboratively to suggest ways for Dow to serve new industries.”

“Dow recognizes the potential for oil-soluble PAGs. We believe there is a broad spectrum of applications, and in order to reach those untapped areas, we need to reach across multiple industries,” said Lisa Inoue, strategic marketing leader for oil-soluble PAGs at Dow. “Experience shows open innovation and collaboration with a diverse pool of experts accelerates, magnifies and improves the caliber of solutions.”

The Oil-Sol Challenge will enable participants to work with Dow, be recognized for innovations, and make a lasting mark in the fields of science and technology. In addition to prize money, Challenge winners may go on to work with Dow over the long term.

To learn more about Dow Lubricants please visit www.dow.com/

About Dow

Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2012, Dow had annual sales of approximately $57 billion and employed approximately 54,000 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 188 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

About InnoCentive

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based technology combine to help our clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For more than a decade, leading organizations such as AARP Foundation, Air Force Research Labs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, EMC Corporation, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Procter & Gamble, Scientific American, Syngenta, The Economist, Thomson Reuters, and the U.S. EPA have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve problems faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com, email info@innocentive.com, or call 1-855-CROWDNOW (U.S.) or +44 (0) 207 935 0827 (International).

Contacts

The Dow Chemical Company
Rachel Acker
+1 (989)638-8694
rlacker@dow.com

InnoCentive
Norah McDonald
+1 (978)482-3335
press@innocentive.com

Schwartz MSL
Amanda Fountain
+1 (781)684-0770
innocentive@schwartzmsl.com

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Waltham, MA – InnoCentive, Inc., the global leader in open innovation, crowdsourcing, and prize competitions, today announced significant traction for the company’s Global Solver Community, with 300,000 individuals from more than 200 countries now registered to generate novel ideas and find creative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems. Additionally, more than 500,000 project rooms – where Solvers review information about a Challenge, ask questions, and submit their ideas and solutions – have now been opened.

InnoCentive’s Solvers are well-versed in a wide variety of disciplines, including business and entrepreneurship, engineering and design, food and agriculture, information technology, life sciences and health, mathematics and data analysis, and physical sciences. More than 60 percent of Solvers have earned a Master’s Degree or PhD in their field. In addition to InnoCentive’s registered community of 300,000 Solvers, more than 50 unique customers have increased their reach to millions of potential Solvers through InnoCentive’s strategic partnerships with organizations such as Nature Publishing Group and Scientific American.

InnoCentive has worked with hundreds of organizations across a wide range of sectors and industries, including agri-sciences, chemicals, consumer goods, education, food and beverage, government and the public sector, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, technology, and non-profits. The company has now posted more than 1,650 public Premium Challenges valued at more than $40 million, awarded more than 1,500 cash prizes to Solvers, and achieved an 85 percent success rate for Challenges.

“As the pioneer in crowdsourcing innovation problems to a world of on-demand talent, InnoCentive is proud to engage some of the most creative minds of our time, including engineers, scientists, inventors, and business people from all around the world,” said Craig Jones, Executive Chairman of InnoCentive. “Every day our Solvers have the opportunity to not only help the organizations with which we work, but challenge themselves to earn rewards for solving important problems. The growth in our Solver community, combined with an unprecedented 85 percent success rate for Challenges that we develop and host, demonstrates the effectiveness of our model in driving tangible results for our clients.”

About InnoCentive

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based innovation management platform combine to help our clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For more than a decade, leading organizations such as AARP Foundation, Air Force Research Labs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, EMC Corporation, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Procter & Gamble, Scientific American, Syngenta, The Economist, Thomson Reuters, and several government agencies in the U.S. and Europe have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve problems faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com, email info@innocentive.com, or call 1-855-CROWDNOW (U.S.) or +44 (0) 207 224 0110 (International).

Media Contacts:

Steve Bonadio
InnoCentive, Inc.
978-482-3300
press@innocentive.com

Kiley Nichols
Schwartz MSL for InnoCentive
415-512-0770
innocentive@schwartzmsl.com

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Waltham, MA – InnoCentive, Inc., the global leader in open innovation, crowdsourcing, and prize competitions, today announced the launch of a new Challenge, Real-Time Sensor to Monitor Sewer Overflows, seeking ideas for a new generation of low-cost, low-maintenance sensors to monitor sewer overflows. This $10,000 Ideation Challenge is being offered through the partnership of Cincinnati Innovates, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District and Northern Kentucky Sewer District 1.

The ability to effectively collect real-time information from these locations is key to reducing sewer overflows in urban areas such as Greater Cincinnati. The lack of cost-effective technologies to monitor such overflows often makes data collection efforts in these areas inefficient and unsuccessful. This Challenge seeks ideas for an efficient, low-cost and low-maintenance real-time sensor to monitor sewer overflows and characterize the impact of wet weather on urban sewers.

“EPA supports this challenge in partnership with Confluence, the water technology innovation cluster in the Greater Cincinnati region,” said Sally Gutierrez, director of U.S. EPA’s Environmental Technology Innovation Cluster Program. “Billions of gallons of raw sewage and storm water runoff pollute our waterways each year. This Challenge is a great way to engage members of the water technology sector to foster collaboration, innovation, and create economic opportunity, while solving current, pressing human health and environmental issues like water pollution.”

Solvers are encouraged to consider similar sensors already being used in other applications or industries that could be modified for overflow monitoring, as well as to think “outside the box” to suggest novel ideas for a new generation of sensors that could provide a clear advantage over existing technologies.

“This is the 100th anniversary of water research and innovation in Cincinnati,” said Elizabeth Edwards, venture capital investor and founder of Cincinnati Innovates. “It’s only fitting that this year Cincinnati Innovates will highlight globally competitive water research.”

“After the successful ‘My Air My Health’ Challenge, we are excited to be collaborating again with the U.S. EPA, and this time with Cincinnati Innovates as well,” said Alph Bingham, co-founder and board member of InnoCentive. “Whether it’s finding better ways to recycle lead-heavy glass, improving water access and quality in developing countries, or helping reduce agricultural pollutants, our creative global Solvers have risen admirably to help tackle these world-changing health and environment Challenges, proving that great ideas and solutions can come from anyone and anywhere.”

To participate in this Challenge, please visit www.innocentive.com/epa. Twitter users can follow the Challenge at #epawaterchallenge.

About Cincinnati Innovates

Cincinnati Innovates is in its fifth year and has awarded over $350,000 in grant awards. Past winners have gone on to receive national media attention and have collectively raised over $8 million in follow-on financing. Details can be found online at www.cincinnatiinnovates.com.

About InnoCentive
 

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based technology combine to help our clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For more than a decade, leading organizations such as AARP Foundation, Air Force Research Labs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, EMC Corporation, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Procter & Gamble, Scientific American, Syngenta, The Economist, Thomson Reuters, and several government agencies in the U.S. and Europe have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve problems faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com, email info@innocentive.com, or call 1-855-CROWDNOW (U.S.) or +44 (0) 207 224 0110 (International).

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Media Contacts:

Elizabeth Edwards
Cincinnati Innovates
513-502-9756
elizabeth@metroinnovation.com

Steve Bonadio
InnoCentive, Inc.
978-482-3300
press@innocentive.com

Kiley Nichols
Schwartz MSL for InnoCentive
415-512-0770
innocentive@schwartzmsl.com

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Waltham, MA – InnoCentive, Inc., the global leader in open innovation, crowdsourcing, and prize competitions, today announced significant milestones achieved in the first quarter of 2013. The company experienced significant growth across a number of dimensions, including customers, regions, industry sectors, and products, and is poised for continued growth and expansion throughout 2013.

InnoCentive closed the first quarter of 2013 with impressive year-over-year and sequential bookings growth of 89 percent and 50 percent, respectively. All regions showed significant year-over-year bookings growth, with exceptional triple-digit growth achieved in InnoCentive EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). All product lines, including InnoCentive@Work, Premium Challenges, and Custom Challenge Programs, also experienced substantial growth, and the company achieved 60 percent growth in new customers.

Ellen Rotenberg, senior manager of product innovation at Thomson Reuters and an InnoCentive client, said, “First-hand interaction with our customers is paramount to delivering innovative solutions that enable them to achieve amazing results. Participating in crowd-driven innovation, and posting Challenges on InnoCentive, is a natural evolution and a critical part of our community engagement and product development process.”

Nearly 75 percent of the hundreds of public Challenges that closed in the past year paid out a cash award to Solvers, up significantly over prior years and indicative of clients’ increased adoption, usage, and success with InnoCentive’s unique Challenge Driven Innovation methodology. To date, InnoCentive has posted more than $40 million in cash awards. As a consequence of this momentum and to satisfy increasing client demand, InnoCentive continues to expand and invest in all areas of its business, including client services and delivery, product development, sales, marketing, alliances, and finance.

“I continue to be very pleased with the growth and momentum in our business, and all of the hard work that the InnoCentive team puts into ensuring that our clients are successful,” said Craig Jones, Executive Chairman of InnoCentive. “In fact, while our first quarter clearly demonstrated our strong performance across a number of important dimensions, it is our deeply committed focus on helping our clients to achieve meaningful innovation outcomes that will allow us to continue to aggressively expand our business and satisfy increasing client demand for our products and services moving forward.”

In the past year, InnoCentive added nearly 80 new customers across a wide variety of industry sectors, including GlaxoSmithKline, Johns Hopkins, Lumina Foundation, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Thomson Reuters, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Additionally, InnoCentive developed new strategic partnerships with AARP Foundation and Scientific American. InnoCentive also expanded its presence in several industry sectors, including aerospace and defense, banking and finance, chemicals and agri-sciences, consumer goods, education, energy and utilities, food and beverage, healthcare, high technology, life sciences, manufacturing, non-profits, and public sector/government.

First quarter 2013 highlights include:

• The launch of the Lumina Foundation Open Innovation Pavilion along with several Challenges focused on exploring novel approaches to increase postsecondary degree attainment in America. Additional information about the Foundation’s efforts can be found here.
• The announcement by the United Kingdom’s Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) Enabling Innovation Team (EIT) of its upcoming £1 million competition to identify opportunities for innovation in service culture, business process, journey planning, the whole journey experience, and design of facilities. Said David Clarke, director of EIT, “The rail industry constantly strives to improve the customer experience, but there is always scope to do more. We want to use this competition to showcase successful ideas and approaches from other customer service sectors and create the environment where the best of these ideas can be brought into the rail industry.”
• The launch of the Scientific American Open Innovation Pavilion, jointly hosted on both InnoCentive.com and ScientificAmerican.com. This partnership extends the reach of InnoCentive Premium Challenges to Scientific American’s audience of more than four million unique monthly website visitors, and marks the growth of InnoCentive’s long-standing collaboration with Nature Publishing Group (NPG), Scientific American’s parent organization.
• The successful conclusion of two AARP Foundation Challenges aimed at improving the lives of older Americans. Three Solvers were awarded a total of $25,000 for their winning submissions, and overall the two Challenges attracted more than 1,000 Solvers who submitted a total of 179 solutions.
• The launch of a $1 million “Big Data” Prodigy Challenge that seeks to identify organisms from a stream of DNA sequences. More than 2,000 Solvers have signed up to participate in this Challenge, which runs through the end of May 2013.
• InnoCentive became a member of a consortium in the multi-year Robot Competitions Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics (RoCKIn) project, funded by the European Commission and designed to spur innovation in robotics through competitions.

• Dozens of new Challenges were posted by organizations such as Air Force Research Labs, Consumer Electronics Association, Lumina Foundation, Oil Sands Leadership Initiative, Thomson Reuters, and USAID/Humanity United (through NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, also known as CoECI).

Additional stories about InnoCentive’s Seeker clients and Solvers can be found on InnoCentive’s blog and online resources page.

About InnoCentive

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based technology combine to help our clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For more than a decade, leading organizations such as AARP Foundation, Air Force Research Labs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, EMC Corporation, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Procter & Gamble, Scientific American, Syngenta, The Economist, Thomson Reuters, and several government agencies in the U.S. and Europe have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve problems faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com, email info@innocentive.com, or call 1-855-CROWDNOW (U.S.) or +44 (0) 207 224 0110 (International).

Media Contacts:

Steve Bonadio

InnoCentive, Inc.

978-482-3300

press@innocentive.com

Kiley Nichols

Schwartz MSL for InnoCentive

415-512-0770

innocentive@schwartzmsl.com