Perspectives on Innovation

We recently posted several Challenges that focus on both engineering and the environment, specifically Challenges in the areas of water collection and conservation, harnessing alternative energy from lightning, and improved quality of life during space travel.

Shortly after posting these Challenges, we were approached by the organizers of an international environmental engineering event called Chemozàle .  The founders believed that event attendees would be a perfect audience for these particular Challenges, and, as a service to attendees, posted them on the event web site.  To date, we’ve had more than 100 people from Chemozàle visit our web site to view these Challenges – and hope to see many more.   We believe that Solvers are motivated to work on Challenges that really make a difference – and we are delighted to see the next generation of Solvers come forward to offer their time and efforts to resolve some of the world’s critical issues.

About Chemozàle:

Chemozàle was founded in 1999 as an event for, by and of the Chemical Engineering Students Association (ChESA) of Nirma University.  Now in its 11th year, Chemozàle has grown to include over 100 top Technical & Business schools across India.  Chemozàle takes place in the city of Ahmedabad, and is a combination of workshops, competitions and exhibitions where the budding engineers of tomorrow showcase their creative, business, technical and environmental skills.  This year’s conference theme is ‘Zero Carbon Footprint’, and the festivities will include a tree-planting session to help mitigate the emission of CO2 into the environment. To quote one of the students, their hope is to “plant saplings to the tune equal to the amount of carbon generated because of the event.”

Check out the website, and if you’re a student anywhere in India,  drop by Chemozàle on March 26th and help them plant a tree!

Today marks the first in a series of blog posts written by the InnoCentive Client Services team.   As the primary interface to both the Seeker and Solver communities, Client Services is in a unique position to understand what it takes to successfully write and solve an InnoCentive Challenge.  We hope that these posts will be useful to you – and as always we welcome your questions, suggestions and feedback!

The InnoCentive Client Services Team – Who We Are

By Gabriel Eichler
InnoCentive Client Services

For many Solvers, the Client Services team is the virtual face of InnoCentive. We are involved in every aspect of the Challenge lifecycle, from working to define the crux of the problem with Seekers, to answering the questions of inquisitive Solvers and then making that exciting introduction between the winning Solver and appreciative Seeker. With such a wide variety of responsibilities, the InnoCentive Client Services team wears several hats, but that comes naturally to us.

We’re an experienced and diverse bunch. We have a combined total of over 17 years of Open Innovation experience and an average 13 years of R&D intensive industry experience. We have advanced degrees in Chemistry, Biology, Computational Sciences, Engineering and Business. The Client Services team has worked all over the world including Russia, Switzerland, France, Israel, Thailand, Japan, Germany, and even Alaska. On top of that, we collectively speak 7 different languages.

Even considering this diversity, we’ve joined InnoCentive because we believe in the promise of Open Innovation. We not only love to provide exciting Challenges for individuals around the globe but we also believe that the opening of innovation will lead to more and better innovation for all. It is precisely because of this passion that we’re launching this new series of blog entries by the InnoCentive Client Services team. We hope that through the next several months, you’ll get to know us better and our individual passions for Open Innovation will shine through. More importantly, we hope that you can benefit from the insights we share. We have after all seen over 700 Challenges on the InnoCentive Website, so we happen to know a thing or two about what it takes to get the most out of our marketplace. We encourage you to leave comments, ask questions and reach out to any of us if you’d like to join the conversation. Enjoy.