Perspectives on Innovation

We recently posted a Challenge for the LAUNCH initiative, a collaboration among  USAID, Nike, NASA and the U.S. State Department.  This is the second Challenge posed by LAUNCH, but the first posted on InnoCentive.com.  This Challenge is seeking preventive measures to improve the first 20 years of human health via nutrition, exercise and diagnostics.   We asked Dave Ferguson, from the Science and Technology Office at United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to talk to us a bit about this Challenge and the opportunity available for the winning Solvers.

Hi Dave.  Thanks for talking to our Solvers today.

Absolutely – thanks for asking.

Your partnership – USAID, Nike, NASA and the State Department is interesting – can you tell us how this collaboration came about?

If you think about it, there’s a pretty significant benefit to NASA, USAID and the State Department working together to share skills, information and expertise.  NASA, for example, has spent years, decades really, perfecting the art of working in resource constrained environments, through the evolution of manned space flight.  This expertise can be used in all kinds of other situations, to solve to problems in developing countries, or in dealing with natural disasters, just to name a few.    Another example is the extremely sophisticated earth sensing and data analysis capabilities that NASA has developed, which can be used to deal with environmental impacts from natural disasters.   USAID and the State Department have similar expertise to share – and we realized that we are more likely to succeed when we work together.

To round out the partnership, it made sense to bring in an organization from the private sector.  For this Challenge in particular, with its focus on improving health and promoting healthy habits, Nike was a natural fit, because of their focus on viable business models and sustainability.  Nike has always been an environmentally responsible corporation, with a long history of releasing innovative products, therefore they were excited for the opportunity to be part of the collaboration.

What are your objectives in participating in this Challenge? (more…)

We recently announced a Challenge seeking cell lines for Chordoma, a very rare type of bone cancer.  We asked Josh Sommer, Founder and Executive Director of the Chordoma Foundation, to talk to us a bit about his Challenge and tell us why it’s so important that a solution is found.

Hi Josh,  thanks for being with us today and talking to our Solvers about your Challenge.

Absolutely – thanks for having me.

Your Challenge is seeking cell lines for Chordoma.  Can you tell us a bit about this disease?

Chordoma is a slow-growing, but relentless, form of bone cancer that occurs in the skull and spine in people of all ages. Because of their proximity to the brain and spinal cord, chordomas often cause serious neurologic impairment, and are quite complicated to treat. About thirty percent of chordoma patients are cured with surgery and radiation, but for those who aren’t, few treatment options are available, as chemotherapy is usually ineffective. As a result, the majority of patients will succumb to their disease within 7 years. Recently, a number of promising therapeutic targets have been identified which could offer hope to chordoma patients in desperate need of effective treatment options. Cell lines are crucial to evaluating these therapeutic targets and for testing and developing new treatments. Unfortunately, scarcity of valid chordoma cell lines has hamstrung the efforts of dozens of would-be chordoma researchers, and is severely hampering treatment development efforts.

Why have Chordoma cell lines been so difficult to find in the past? (more…)

We recently announced the posting of the first InnoCentive for Startups Challenge, called “The Internet of Things“, by Precyse Technologies. We asked John Stopper, Co-Founder, CEO and President, to talk to us a bit about the Challenge and about being InnoCentive’s first InnoCentive for Startups Seeker.

Precyse Technologies is leveraging InnoCentive’s open innovation solution for startup companies. How will this benefit small companies? Would you recommend this?

Shifting from core product development to the high-growth stage in a startup’s evolution requires the company to scale rapidly while maintaining a lean and flexible structure. InnoCentive’s new offering targeted at startups allowed us to gain immediate access to a global talent base at a dramatically lower price point compared to the classical model of recruitment, training and execution. The InnoCentive approach also gave us greater control to sort through the different solver solutions, picking the best of breed approach with a very short time to market. The price advantage, time to market, control over the solution and the immediate access we gained to a global talent base makes InnoCentive a great choice for Precyse, both in the R&D and in the business development domains. I would recommend InnoCentive for startups to any company focusing on rapidly growing its market and product offering while maintaining an innovation advantage.

Your current Business Challenge is called “Enabling the Internet of Things“. Can you please explain the meaning behind the name, and explain a little bit about the Challenge.

Precyse offers its customers a wireless network solution, dedicated for asset and machine communications. This asset network allows inanimate objects, such as engines on an automotive manufacturer’s line, to wirelessly communicate their location, sensory status and even get remote instructions to take action. N3, the first bi-directional, wireless asset network standard from Precyse takes a lip forward in RFID evolution. Coupled with the Precyse Smart Agent, a ‘cell phone” build for assets, Precyse offers an out-of-the-box solution with the promise to build a world of networked and interconnected made-smart devices. Everything from engine parts, home appliances or cars may be in communications range, heralding the dawn of a new era; one in which today’s Internet (of data and people) gives way to tomorrow’s Internet of Things.

Following a successful technology cooperation with SAP, we decided to launch a first business challenge in the SAP pavilion on InnoCentive. The objective of this challenge is to identify exciting new opportunities, integrating the Precyse real time asset visibility product suite with legacy software solutions from leading supply-chain management vendors. We wish to incentive the community to help us indentify new partners and new end-customer opportunities, embracing this innovative approach for real-time supply chain visibility.

What appealed to you about posting your Challenge on InnoCentive?

We are always searching for new and innovative ways to enable fast growth and a smarter use of the company’s capital resources. Precyse found both with the Innocentive offering for startups. The impressive short term impact we experienced and the excellent support we have been receiving from the InnoCentive team contributed to making this a successful experience – one I would recommend to any fast-growth business to explore.

As many of you may remember, in November 2008 InnoCentive ran an ideation Challenge looking for ideas for redesigning the InnoCentive website. The Challenge’s Summary stated: “InnoCentive is inviting Solvers to join its efforts in redesigning our website. We are asking Solvers to provide us with innovative and creative new design elements that we might integrate into the final website design.”

Now that the Challenge has wrapped, I asked the Challenge owner, Gabriel Eichler of InnoCentive Client Services, to tell us a bit about the results, and about his experience as a Seeker.

Gabe, how many Solvers did you award for this Challenge?

In the end we awarded three Solvers for contributions that were extremely impressive – both in terms of their creativity and the sheer amount of effort that they demonstrated.

Can you describe the winning submissions?

(more…)

InnoCentive recently announced the posting of one of the most ambitious Challenges we’ve seen to date – posted by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). The objective of this Challenge is to further the development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine.  I asked Kalpana Gupta, Ph.D., Director, New Alliances & Initiatives at IAVI to provide a bit of insight into the current state of HIV/AIDS vaccine development and the importance of this particular Challenge to that effort. 
 

Hi Kalpana – thanks for answering my questions today.  Can you tell me about the general state of the search for a vaccine for HIV/AIDS?

Hi Connie.  Although HIV was discovered to be the virus that causes AIDS 25 years ago, the effort to develop a preventive AIDS vaccine has only been a robustly funded initiative in the last decade. In that time, we have seen a tremendous surge in political and financial support for AIDS vaccine development. We have also seen a steady stream of incremental advances that provide the foundation for the AIDS vaccine development efforts now underway across the globe.  (more…)