James Mitchell
I am not a fan of research for the sake of research. I like to see a direct application of my work. In this regard, InnoCentive is a gift from heaven for me. I have always been interested in applying my research and reasoning skills to practical problems. It is this kind of need that fires my imagination. If there is a problem that needs to be solved, I want to contribute to the solution.
I get a real kick out of working on a subject that is far from my inner sphere of expertise, especially when my ideas turn out to be good. Winning two InnoCentive Challenges, one on corrosion detection and the other on sulfur encapsulation for lubrication applications, are some of the achievements of which I am most proud. Of course I have rendered many other solutions that were not accepted. (Ed Melcarek and Nikolay Barashkov are strong competition!). But I did enjoy formulating them and I shall continue to send in proposed solutions, for who knows, maybe they will turn out to be valuable and, yes, lucrative.
