Perspectives on Innovation

Bogdan and Stephanie Yamkovenko won The Economist-Nielsen Data Visualization Challenge, which asked the World to review Nielsen consumer data, generate insightful conclusions with broad implications, and present a compelling visual presentation of the most interesting ideas from the data. Over 4,000 Solvers from 101 countries signed up to participate in the Challenge. To view the Yamkovenko’s winning submission, a video of them presenting it at The Economist World in 2013 Festival, and profiles of all the Challenge finalists, please click here.

We saw an advertisement in The Economist for the Data Visualization Challenge sponsored by Nielsen and The Economist. The focus of the Challenge was to analyze a data set provided by Nielsen and to tell a story using data visualization. I am a journalist and have also done graphic design in the past, so I knew I could handle the visual story telling. Bogdan is a researcher and assistant professor with an affinity for statistics, which means that he could easily handle the data analysis.

Bogdan and I have been married for six years and had never previously collaborated professionally on a project. This Data Visualization Challenge was a great opportunity for us to combine our skills and, ultimately, be competitive.

We began our work on the Challenge with a brainstorm about the Nielsen global dataset, which consisted of the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index and other data about consumer spending and purchasing habits. We decided to supplement the dataset with other widely available economic indicators (such as unemployment rates). We noticed that countries that had high confidence in their economies were not necessarily the best performing economies.

When working on my master’s degree in journalism, I developed an appreciation for my profession’s role as the “fourth estate.” As we looked at the confidence index, we noticed that countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt had high confidence, but their economies weren’t doing that great. We wondered whether democracy was playing a role in the citizens’ confidence. We decided to include the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index in our analysis, and found that countries with the highest confidence also had the most restricted press. This finding gave us a compelling story to tell and gave the original Nielsen dataset more context and depth. (more…)

Dear Seekers & Solvers –

As we enter 2013, we would like to thank you – our Seekers and Solvers alike – for your continued support of InnoCentive. We achieved great things with your help, and anticipate growing momentum this year. But, before looking forward to 2013, let’s take a few moments to consider the past year and recap our journey together.

This year has been exciting and groundbreaking in many ways: Our global Solver network grew to over 275,000 creative and diverse minds, we crossed the 1,500 threshold in external Challenges posted to our network, and we exceeded $13 million in total awards paid out to our Solvers. Additionally, our Seekers – and their Challenges – grew more diverse in 2012 due to the increased use of Challenges in industries such as aerospace, financial services, healthcare, and the public sector. Further, the adoption of “Big Data” Prodigy Challenges among our Seekers (e.g., Cleveland Clinic and Prize4Life) saw explosive growth. All of these trends mean exciting new opportunities for Seekers and Solvers alike in 2013!

Our mission has always been to help address and resolve problems that matter, so we have been fortunate to have worked with incredible organizations that ask the world to address global concerns and make extraordinary things happen. We – the collective “we” which includes Seekers, Solvers, and InnoCentive – helped Prize4Life to better predict the progression of disease in ALS patients. We announced the conclusion of the “Global Giveback Challenge Series,” a collaboration between InnoCentive, GlobalGiving, and the Rockefeller Foundation to find solutions to dire water-related problems in developing countries. And we helped BeyondPolio find novel ideas for reducing the cost of using inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) to help in the final stages of the global polio eradication effort. There are many more examples, but suffice to say, we still firmly believe in changing the world, one Challenge at a time.

As many of you know, we kicked the year off with our acquisition of OmniCompete, a firm based in London that specializes in Grand Challenges and is best known for its long-running Global Security Challenge. This acquisition also enabled us to expand our presence in the United Kingdom and Europe. Prior to this acquisition, in December 2011, we announced a strategic alliance with Booz Allen Hamilton to bring to market integrated, full-service open innovation and Challenge offerings to both commercial enterprises and public sector agencies. (more…)

We are collaborating with AARP Foundation, AARP’s charitable affiliate, to help advance the Foundation’s cause of improving the lives of millions of older Americans who struggle to meet their basic needs for nutritious food, safe and affordable housing, adequate income, and personal connections. As part of our work together, InnoCentive and AARP Foundation have launched the AARP Foundation-InnoCentive Challenge Series, which is comprised of a dedicated Pavilion along with two new Challenges focused on food insecurity. We asked Jo Ann Jenkins, president of AARP Foundation, to chat with us about the Foundation, the collaboration and its goals, and the two new Challenges now open to Solvers on InnoCentive.com. [Ed note: A press release of the partnership and Challenge announcement can be found here.]

Hello Ms. Jenkins – we appreciate you taking the time to join us. First of all, can you tell us more about the AARP Foundation?  
I’m delighted to. America has always been known as the land of opportunity. But for an alarming number of Americans age 50 and above, any opportunity feels distant right now, if not totally unobtainable. Uncertainty is the new normal – one in four workers has burned through their savings and many are living from paycheck to paycheck. They have worked hard, paid their taxes, and served their communities and country, but now they’re on the road to economic disaster. AARP Foundation helps struggling people 50+ to win back opportunity and move from vulnerability to stability.

According to the Foundation’s research, nearly 9 million American adults age 50 and older are at risk of hunger. How is the Foundation addressing this critical issue?
Working with AARP, we began Drive to End Hunger in 2011, a comprehensive, long-term national initiative with the goal of solving one of the most urgent and challenging issues of our time – hunger among older people. This initiative includes several key programs:

(1) Our cause-marketing work with NASCAR four-time Sprint Cup series winner Jeff Gordon and team owner Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports to raise awareness of hunger and raise funds to fight it. NASCAR fans are one of the most charitable and community-oriented group of sports fans in the U.S.

2) Educating and enrolling people age 60+ in SNAP (formerly known as food stamps). SNAP is the cornerstone of the federal nutrition programs. While overall program participation has increased with the economic downturn, senior participation in SNAP has remained chronically low with only 1 out of every 3 adults 60+ who are eligible for benefits actually receiving them.

SNAP is not simply a nutrition assistance program that allows recipients to purchase food for good health; it is also an economic support program. The average monthly benefit amount for seniors receiving SNAP is $119, or $1,400 a year. This benefit boosts the budgets of low-income seniors so they don’t have to make impossible choices between feeding themselves or getting their prescriptions filled. On average, SNAP benefits last far longer than an emergency food box (2.5 to 3 weeks vs. 2 days), and empower seniors to choose foods that meet their dietary requirements and cultural needs. (more…)

Ben Skowera is the winner of The Economist-InnoCentive Transparency Challenge.

I am an Associate at SEI Investments in Oaks, Pennsylvania, where I’m currently working on the online software development team performing quality assurance and business analysis for our products. My past projects at SEI have also included web product strategy, international new service development, project management, and operational process improvement. I graduated from Lehigh University in 2009 with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Economics.

I first learned of InnoCentive through a news article about technology and innovation and I decided to sign up. Shortly after, I came across The Economist-InnoCentive Transparency Challenge in one of the site’s weekly Challenge Bulletins. The Challenge tasked Solvers with developing an innovative way to utilize technology to drive transparency in the government. With the upcoming presidential elections and the political turmoil occurring throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa, I thought this topic was both extremely relevant and important.

I believe having a basic knowledge of the government, political processes, and current political events is a very important part of anyone’s involvement in government and politics. After performing research into how people obtain information about their governments, I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t a sufficient way to truly understand the impact that political decisions have on us and our values and how well our elected officials are representing us over time. This is why I proposed my solution of creating a website that delivers personal and easy-to-understand, value-based political analysis by utilizing technologies and techniques used in online dating, social networking, and metric-based dashboard design.

As part of the award, I traveled to the Ideas Economy: Innovation 2012 event in Berkeley, California, where I was interviewed on stage by Matthew Bishop, US Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief of The Economist. The experience was incredible and so was the opportunity to meet and speak with some of the amazing people that attended the event. [editor note: to see Ben’s interview at the event, click on the link above]

By connecting organizations with problems to Solvers that reside outside of specific localities or the four walls of typical organization, I believe InnoCentive is creating a great opportunity for both people and organizations to take advantage of the tremendous knowledge the world has to offer. As more and more people connect due to the expansion of technology and the internet, I believe InnoCentive has developed a great way to bring together everyone’s ideas and create a global community to solve the world’s biggest problems.

I wish the best of luck to all future InnoCentive Solvers.

We recently announced a Challenge with the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) to improve sanitation and containment of waste during humanitarian responses to natural or man-made disasters. A solution to this Challenge would benefit thousands of people displaced by these disasters, often in already-vulnerable communities. We spoke recently with Nicolas Kröger, Manager of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, about the Challenge and its potential impact. [Ed note: A press release of the Challenge announcement can be found here.]

Hello Nicolas.  There are clearly many immediate as well as long-term needs that people affected by disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis have. Can you tell us why you decided to focus this Challenge on sanitation?

Hello, and thanks for the opportunity to discuss this important Challenge. When we first looked at the possibility of organizing a Challenge with InnoCentive, we were aware that we would have to leave out many of the needs that people affected by disasters have. As a result, we knew that whichever sector we decided to focus on as a first Challenge would have to be built around a broad consensus within the sector.

We thus decided to survey the humanitarian community and ask where they thought innovation was most needed in the system. Unsurprisingly, we received many answers, but most were high-level and outside the scope of the HIF and/or the Challenge we wanted to establish. However, from the top three sectors coming out of the survey, the more specific and tangible Challenges suggested were to be found in the WASH area. For example, the appropriate water treatment technologies for immediate relief phase, an emergency toilet ‘platform’ that enables adaptations that are culturally appropriate, hand hygiene technologies for emergencies, and so on.

A gap analysis that had been initiated by the WASH sector further suggested that while a lot of effort and resources were being put into water treatment, hand washing, sanitation and hygiene promotion have been proven to have a much bigger health impact. Sanitation therefore seemed to be a good place to start.

The Challenge mentions particular issues with providing latrines in urban environments.  Can you say more about the limitations and obstacles in these situations?

With more than half the world population now living in urban centers, and the trend moving upward, an increasing number of disasters will have an impact on urban contexts and populations. These pose specific challenges for humanitarians responding to a crisis. Up until now, most tools and approaches have been developed with rural areas in mind and they need to be rethought for urban areas which pose a distinct set of challenges.

Urban environments are not all properly planned and developed: about a third of the urban population is actually living in slums or informal settlements with poor or no existing sanitation services. In these usually crowded and confined areas, the lack of both adequate water supplies and proper sanitation (e.g., open drains, sewers) increase the risk of disease transmission. This necessitates rethinking the way we build latrines. Additionally, existing solutions don’t take into account the specific nature of urban centers with their hard-to-dig pavements and concrete which make the current pit latrine design impractical with regards to time and resource constraints following a disaster.

This is a Theoretical Challenge with a non-exclusive license.  Has the HIF thought about what it will do to develop and implement the winning solution? Read the rest of this entry »