Perspectives on Innovation

In 2010 we announced the Global Giveback Challenge Series – an exciting 3 phase partnership with GlobalGiving, a peer-to-peer philanthropy marketplace, and the Rockefeller Foundation to crowdsource solutions to problems facing vulnerable communities.  We are excited to be entering phase 3 of the series:

Phase One: Identify dire problems that could be solved via the InnoCentive Global Solver Community.  Global Giving crowdsourced ideas from its then 800-partner membership.

Phase Two: From the submissions, four water-related Challenges were developed and posted to the InnoCentive Challenge Platform, and awards of up to $40,000 per Challenge were offered by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Phase Three: Crowdfund implementation of the solutions.  The Challenges and their solutions are now posted to GlobalGiving for funding. For the month of February, The Rockefeller Foundation is matching every donation 200%.

More information on each of the projects is below.  This is a rare opportunity to see InnoCentive sourced solutions through to implementation.  To donate to one of these projects, please visit the Global Giveback Funding Challenge page

1. Design of an easy-to-use method to purify water from Lake Victoria in Uganda, making it safe to drink. Proposed by the EDGE project, this Challenge sought a way to provide 100 homes with water filters that would improve upon current filtration systems for the cost of one gallon of bottled water in the developed world. Submitted by Chris Schulz, an environmental engineer from Denver, Colorado, the winning design is simple, low-cost, user-friendly, and effective against almost all bacteria, protozoa, and some viruses. EDGE will assemble and distribute filters to their partner community in Uganda this summer, allowing hundreds of individuals to go about life without fear of intestinal disease and parasites, empowering people to break the bonds of abject poverty.
2. Sunlight/UV-light Dose Indicator. Proposed by Fundacion SODIS in Bolivia, this Challenge sought a visual sign of water that had been exposed to a sufficient dose of sunlight or UV-light for disinfection. A team of four graduate students from the University of Washington developed the winning solution: a solar disinfectant indicator that is self‐contained, self‐powered, low‐cost, durable, and reusable. Composed of off‐the‐shelf components and proven technology, the indicator should withstand a minimum of 10 years of use.
3. Design of a low cost Rainwater Harvesting Storage Tank for a Wetland Region in Kerala India. Proposed by Rainwater for Humanity, this solution was provided by Mario Rosato, who also won an award for his solution to The Economist-InnoCentive Challenge, The Capture of Atmospheric Carbon to Address Global Warming. Rosato proposed a rainwater catchment tank that could be constructed of panels made from bamboo fiber, coconut husks, or other vegetable fiber conglomerated with cement. Implementation of this solution has the potential of reducing the cost of rainwater harvesting by 60 percent.
4. Small-scale River Turbines for communities along the Amazon River. Proposed by Green Empowerment, this Challenge sought a design for a river turbine to generate power for villages, schools, and medical centers in the Amazonian jungle in Peru. Alain Lemyre, a weather forecaster from Quebec, provided the winning design: an improved river turbine model that is appropriate for the region, technically and economically accessible, and constructed with materials available in developing countries.

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We recently announced a Challenge to advance research in childhood obesity with the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research.  The Challenge is very personal to the Foundation, which is composed of parents of children with Prader-Willi Syndrome.  A solution to this Challenge will have a direct and immediate impact on thousands of children who are currently suffering from the effects of the disorder.  We talked to Shawn about the Challenge, his personal experience with Prader-Willi Syndrome and the overall benefit the Challenge solution will have on the field of obesity research.

Hi Shawn.  Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a relatively rare disorder that may be unfamiliar to many of our Solvers.  Can you tell us a bit about it? What are the biggest challenges faced by children with PWS and their families?

Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder that occurs in approximately one out of every 20,000 births. PWS affects males and females with equal frequency and affects all races and ethnicities. PWS is recognized as the most common genetic cause of life-threatening childhood obesity.  The syndrome is genetically characterized as an abnormality of chromosome 15.

Common characteristics of PWS include small hands and feet, abnormal growth and body composition (small stature, very low lean body mass and early onset childhood obesity), hypotonia (weak muscles) at birth, insatiable hunger, extreme obesity, intellectual disability and mental illness.

The symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome are thought to be caused by dysfunction of a portion of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a small endocrine organ at the base of the brain that plays a crucial role in many bodily functions, including hunger and satiety, temperature and pain regulation, sleep-wake balance, fluid balance, emotions, and fertility

The biggest challenge for kids with PWS is the extreme desire to eat.  This insatiable hunger greatly reduces their quality of life and impacts areas such as learning and social interaction.  We’ve all had times in our lives where we missed a meal; maybe you missed a lunch because you needed to make a deadline at work.  As the hunger continues and that feeling of starvation increases, all you can think about is getting your next meal.  It’s difficult to think of anything but food.  Image having that feeling of hunger all day and for the rest of your life, no matter how much you eat.  That is what our kids face.

The stress level for a family with a child who has PWS is very high.  A big part of the stress is the constant supervision required to keep our kids safe from food.  Because they have an inability to regulate their food intake, this task falls on the parents and others that care for them.  Parents often have to lock up their cabinets and refrigerators to manage food consumption.  Unfortunately there have been many cases where a child has died because of overeating and every parent is aware of this risk.  In our society food is a big part of our culture and trying to balance this while protecting our children from food is very difficult and stressful.

How has PWS affected you personally?

It was Friday, a couple of days before Mother’s Day when we got the diagnosis that Ellie (our first child) had PWS.  It was the hardest piece of information I have ever received.  I was completely confused and scared about what this diagnosis meant.  The physical and emotional pain I felt at that moment was like nothing I had ever felt before.  It’s hard to explain unless you have gone through it but when I heard the words Prader-Willi syndrome I knew our lives would never be the same.  She would never be able to have children, going to college was very unlikely and she would not be able to live an independent life.  Those life expectations that we take for granted were gone.  You don’t really realize how important they are to you until they are gone.  Life had changed.

Ellie and our family have been through a lot.  She has required physical and speech therapy almost from birth to today.  Things that come easily for her peers and her baby sister are difficult for her.  She is almost 5 years old and as she gets older I sense that she realizes things are more difficult for her.  She has OCD and autistic like behaviors.  Though she is thin (because of her strict diet and daily physical activity) she is increasingly interested in food.  She talks about it a lot and it’s getting worse.  Food is becoming the most important thing in her life.  Before it was baby dolls, now it’s pizza or birthday cakes.  Almost as soon as she finishes her dinner she is asking her Mommy what’s for dinner tomorrow or when is her next meal.  As a parent, hearing the words “I’m hungry” from Ellie hurts every time I hear it.  And I hear it constantly throughout the day.  Ellie can’t help it but it doesn’t lessen the pain because I know it’s that insatiable appetite that will prevent her from living an independent life.

What would a solution to this Challenge mean for children with PWS? (more…)

Every year we look forward to reviewing the submissions we receive in our annual video Challenge – and they never disappoint.  They come from all over the world and are created using everything from sophisticated camera equipment and editing software to mobile phones and title cards.  Some of the best videos we’ve ever seen have been made by Solvers or groups of Solvers with nothing but a Flip camera to capture the passion they feel about solving important problems, in humorous or dramatic ways.

This year’s theme, “Unlikely Innovation”, is particularly interesting for us.  We know what you can do when given a difficult problem to solve.  Now we’re asking you to name the problem you’d like to see solved.  It can be serious or silly, world changing or relevant only to you.  Capture it on film and you could join the ranks of others who have won this Challenge – and have seen their videos published and promoted to their peers.

Need a little inspiration?  Here’s a list of interesting innovations proposed over the years, courtesy of Life magazine:

1. Rocket Mail – send mail from Berlin to New York in 24 minutes with this device.
2. Self-Saluting Hat – tired of taking the time to tip your hat when the occasion requires?  Here’s a hat that will do it for you.
3. Car Cooker – cook your meal while you drive with a stove that’s connected to your car’s exhaust pipe.
4. Mechanical Pea Eating Device – for when eating peas from a fork is too taxing.
5. Food Storage Suit – a suit of armor that could store enough food for a month.  Under water.
6. Shaving Robot – this one is just too terrifying to contemplate.  Never trust a robot that won’t look you in the eye.

The InnoCentive video Challenge closes on the 13th – don’t miss your chance to show us what innovation you’d like to see in 2012!

We recently announced a Challenge with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to improve sanitary conditions for more than a billion people in the world using pit latrines.  We asked the Director of Sanitation Ventures, run by LSHTM, to provide a bit of background on the problem at the heart of this Challenge.

Hi Walter.  Can you tell us a bit about Sanitation Ventures and how you’re connected to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine?

Good sanitation is one of the greatest advances in public health, yet it remains unavailable to billions of poor people in developing countries. Around 1.7 billion people worldwide still use one of the most basic forms of on-site (non-piped) sanitation, the pit latrine. And they face a recurring problem: the contents don’t decompose fast enough or fully, and the pits fill up. This seriously undermines people’s health and quality of life.

Sanitation Ventures is a three-year project to tackle these problems, run by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I was involved in developing the proposal with LSHTM and the UK development agency Oxfam. We’re a diverse team of business professionals, scientists, academic researchers and innovation specialists, who want a world where safe, sustainable sanitation is accessible to everyone.

Our approach is based on two core beliefs:

• Many recent scientific advances, particularly in biotechnology, can be readily applied to improving sanitation in sustainable, affordable ways
• Market-led approaches are the best way to provide novel, sustainable interventions to address key development challenges.

Building on the latest advances in science and technology, we’re generating new knowledge about pit latrines and developing innovations in on-site sanitation that will offer longer-lasting, affordable sanitation for low-income users. The BSF larvae approach is just one of several we’re exploring. We’ll then help make sure these solutions are successfully brought to market, where they can have sustainable impact on users’ lives.

Your Challenge is essentially seeking a way to keep pit latrines from overfilling, using black soldier fly (BSF) larvae.  How did this idea of using BSF come about and has it been proven to work elsewhere? (more…)

In March of this year, we started sending a “Certificate of Performance” for winning Solvers to put on display in recognition of their accomplishment. This month, due to feedback from Solvers in the Winning Solvers LinkedIn group, we decided to send out certificates for every single Challenge awarded to any Solver who had logged in to InnoCentive within the past two years. This translated to over 800 certificates to be printed, stuffed in to addressed envelopes, and then mailed all around the world. I documented the whole process so that you guys can get a peek inside InnoCentive!

A stack of Challenge certificates, all for top Solver Yury Bodrov

The massive pile of certificates. We're going to need some help...

First, we lured everyone in to the conference room.

Then we put them to work

Fueled by pizza, we made short work of addressing and stuffing the envelopes. Here's Mike Bittarelli sorting the enveloped by country.

If you’ve won a Challenge, you should receive a certificate in the mail any day.

Keep on Solving!