Perspectives on Innovation

Affordable public housing. Quality schools. Safe neighborhoods. Clean streets. Inexpensive mass transit. There’s no shortage of challenges facing American cities.  But there is an innovative new way to go about solving them:  open innovation.  Last week we announced our “Empowering American Cities” initiative, in which we invite city governments to post a Challenge on our Innovation Marketplace, where it can be addressed by our global community of more than 180,000 scientists, inventors, engineers, researchers, and business people who thrive on solving the world’s toughest problems.

The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce recently partnered with InnoCentive to generate more than 125 ideas for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the region’s mass transit ridership to 1 billion riders.  The winning idea came from a Chicago-based urban affairs writer who received an award of $5,000.  Creative thinkers from as far away as Kenya, Australia and Japan submitted countless new ideas designed to improve Chicago’s mass transit system—from transformational green initiatives to new fare structures and improved user experience.

Now we’re offering the largest cities in America the opportunity to harness the collective brainpower of the world’s most creative minds to solve a pressing urban challenge.  Why are we doing this?  We recognize that what’s good for cities is good for everyone.  We believe InnoCentive can help to impact this positive change, and we’re excited to be part of bringing about solutions that can truly make a difference in the day to day lives of millions of people.

What do you think?  What Challenge would you encourage your city or town to post to our Solvers?  Tell us in the comments.

For more information on how to engage the world’s brightest minds to Solve your city’s critical Challenges, please contact InnoCentive here.

We recently announced that the Challenge posted by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce to increase public transportation ridership had been solved.  I asked Lance Pressl, President of the Chamber, to give us a bit more information about the background of the Challenge, and the impact that he expects to see from its solution.

Hi Lance – thanks for speaking with us today.  Can you tell us why the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce decided to host this Challenge?

The Chicagoland Chamber has a long tradition of promoting public transportation in the region.  We believe that a robust transit system, moving people to and from their place of employment efficiently, safely, conveniently and in a manner that reduces the region’s carbon footprint is critical to the future success of the region in a very competitive, global marketplace.  Our members and their employees represent a significant portion of the customer base of Chicagoland’s public transit agencies.  As a key stakeholder, we decided to take the lead in posting the Challenge to demonstrate our commitment to collaboration and showcase the power of crowdsourcing on a real issue that affects all of the businesses and residents of the region

What appealed to you about posting your Challenge on the InnoCentive marketplace?

Posting a Challenge on InnoCentive offered a unique opportunity to tap into the unlimited resources and brainpower of over 170,000 minds from around the world on an issue of great significance to our members.  Gaining access to this pool of “Solvers” was a very exciting opportunity for the Chamber.  In addition, posting the Challenge on InnoCentive also afforded the Chamber the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to solving the most perplexing problems through open innovation and collaboration.  Through our InnovateNow initiative (see www.innovatenow.us), we actively encourage organizations to use collaborative platforms and tools to meet their strategic objectives.  Posting the challenge on InnoCentive allowed us to showcase the value of crowdsourcing and demonstrate the importance of collaboration.

I understand that you received many solutions from around the world – was there anything that surprised you in the submissions you received?

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