Aake Staahl
I am 50 years old and I live with my wife in our house in a small village in Sweden. Our three children have moved out a few years ago. I am a food chemical engineer with extensive experience in the food manufacturing process like quality control, research, processing and raw material chemistry. .
The first time I came in contact with InnoCentive was when I read a magazine in which there was an article about this new way of doing product developments. Today I do not remember exactly when this was, but I think it was in the beginning when InnoCentive started up.
I became curious about it and went to the homepage to see what it was. I found it very interesting, and the chance to win a great reward if my proposal was chosen, made me shiver. How exciting! A chance to show your competence, work with your brain without limitations and the possibility to compete with others to find the best solution and get money for it! I was directly hooked on the idea and registered as a Solver.
At this time of life I was what you call “fed up” with my work, and wanted to find a new way of developing my personal knowledge and I really needed something which could make my brain “wake up” again. InnoCentive turned out to be this injection! Many times I thought that my employer did not fully use my knowledge and competence in their business. Now suddenly an opportunity popped up for me to let the creative part of my brain operate again and at the same time being able to do the regular work for my employer. This was possible because the InnoCentive work could be done in my spare time after work. An extra hobby work, so to say.
