The Smart Money is on 6 Billion People solving the Problems that Matter
For me, “Open” Innovation embodies the notion that here in the new
economy, marketplaces are emerging for ideas that will fundamentally
challenge the conventional thinking in areas that include ideation,
research, product development, collaboration, and even intellectual
property.
In this brave new world, we don’t seek to limit the number of minds
focused on a problem to a select few, instead we enlist thousands or
millions with a passion to make a difference. Diversity of thought and
access to vast networks of qualified minds becomes the valuable
currency replacing the closed monolithic approaches that literally
define our organizations today. This “Open Innovation” reaches outside
of the four walls and literally attracts, like a powerful magnet,
everyone eager to participate in advancing the cause - solving the
problem.
This approach will power rapid change in every segment of the economy:
Businesses will improve product development life cycles, production methods, and even evolve their own business models
Academia, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Foundations will harness a tremendous diversity of thinking and focus it toward problems of global impact; and
Governments will enlist thousands or millions of citizens in everything from disaster relief to reinventing government.
Imagine FEMA seeking immediately implementable solutions for housing
after Hurricane Katrina; or Los Angeles seeking new approaches to
reducing traffic congestion; or a corporation undertaking to design and
deliver to market better products designed by scientists,
entrepreneurs, and even their existing customers - none of whom may
work for them. In this new world, Open Innovation Marketplaces will
literally be the clearing houses for connecting myriads of needs to
literally millions of creative, inventive, and “uniquely prepared”
minds and organizations from all over the world.
At InnoCentive, we are committed to being at the forefront of this
change. With a firmly held belief that incentives hold the key to
harnessing and focusing the vast collective talent pools available
worldwide, we will drive innovation everywhere there is the potential
to make a difference. Hence the name: Innovation + Incentive =
InnoCentive.
In the last eight years, we have continually tuned our model and
produced extraordinary results. Today we service both “bounded”
problems (very specific problems with precise solution criteria) and
“unbounded” problems (open problems seeking new innovative ideas and
approaches). Our “Solver” network is 170,000+ strong and growing by
thousands per month. This talented network has delivered solutions to
complex problems in science, technology, business, and philanthropy.
While focused initially on Challenges in life sciences, chemistry,
and applied materials, we now routinely run Challenges in areas like
business, engineering, mathematics, computer science, and even food
science. Imagine thousands of engineers with a diversity of specialties
all weighing in on improving battery life in laptops or improving Wi-Fi
antenna design! Through our Pavilions, we focus on areas of global
importance like clean technology, renewable energy, global health, and
public policy. In partnership with Rockefeller Foundation, we have run
a multitude of challenge to help people in impoverished areas of the
world. Have a look at recent solutions impacting work in Malaria, TB,
and energy efficiency Our solvers are brilliant … and are making a
difference every day.
We at InnoCentive are committed to driving a dramatically
accelerated model of innovation - with gains not possible utilizing
existing methods of ideation, invention, and R&D alone. For
organizations that build the capabilities to tap this vast global pool
of innovation capacity, the benefits will be truly extraordinary.
Scott McNealy from Sun Microsystems once proclaimed with great zeal
that the ‘network is the computer’. Wikinomics predicted a similar step
change in the way we think about innovation, where the network of minds
becomes infinitely more valuable that the monolithic approaches we’ve
taken to date. At InnoCentive, our goal is nothing short of enabling
this transformation for organizations and inventive minds all over the
world.
About author:
Dwayne H. Spradlin is President and CEO of InnoCentive Inc. InnoCentive is a global, online marketplace where organizations in need
of innovation–companies, academic institutions, public sector, and
non-profit organizations–can utilize a global network of over 160,000
of the world’s brightest problem solvers.
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