We are currently doing a study with researchers at Erasmus University (Rotterdam, Netherlands) concerning open innovation and prize-based crowdsourcing. They have already conducted personal interviews with several Solvers and as a follow-up will be sending out a survey this week to a few thousand active Solvers. In the researcher’s words:

“We aim to understand your motivations, perceptions, thoughts, and how you solve Challenges.”

I just wanted to give you a heads-up that you might receive this survey in the coming days and mention a few things:

1. The survey is anonymous. It will mention a specific Challenge to which you submitted a solution, but the researchers will not know who you are or see your actual submission – they will just know that you submitted to that particular Challenge. Again, your responses will be treated anonymously and only be used for academic purposes and improving our services.
2. Any Solver who opted out of receiving emails from InnoCentive will not receive the Survey.
3. The survey is targeting “active” Solvers, that is, those that have submitted to several Challenges in recent history. Some will be award winners and some will not.
4. The survey should only take about 15 minutes of your time.

Not everyone will receive a survey, but please check your email (and spam-box) for the survey next week. We ask that you answer all questions as accurately and honestly as possible so that we can build your feedback and insights into our future Challenges and serve you better.

Thank you in advance!

Michael Albarelli
InnoCentive-Erasmus University Research Team

We recently posted a Challenge with the New York & New Jersey Minority Supplier Development Council (The Council) which seeks to identify innovative products and services that drive sustainability, create supply chain efficiencies, and benefit urban and rural communities and business owners. The Challenge offers Minority-Owned Business Enterprises and diverse organizations looking to highlight their innovation, build capacity, and develop supplier relationships with large publically traded corporations, as well as public sector agencies, an opportunity to gain local and national exposure and drive new business opportunities. We asked Kevin V.G. Wells, General Counsel and Director of Compliance for The Council, to chat with us about the Challenge.

Hi Kevin – we appreciate you taking the time to join us. Can you tell us more about The Council and its interest in promoting innovative products and services?

Absolutely. The Council has been proudly operating for close to 40 years. It links its minority supplier network, consisting of start-ups through companies with over $2 billion in revenue, to commercial contract opportunities. Our organization has three core functions: 1) Provide private-sector certification in New York and New Jersey for US entrepreneurs whose businesses are at least 51% Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic-American, Native-American or Pacific-Islander owned, operated, and controlled; 2) Facilitate contract opportunities for Council-certified suppliers with its Fortune 500 membership; and 3) Develop minority supply chains by cultivating innovation.

The Council focuses on minority supply chain development rather than minority business development. It channels diversity into the supply chains of its Fortune 500 corporate membership. These thrusts are geared toward businesses in the fields of science, technology, manufacturing, and environmental betterment. Today, if a diverse business does not address these areas, we strongly believe that it will fail.

How does this Challenge fit into your plans for your upcoming Sustainability Summit?

This Challenge is a vehicle to promote minority supply chain development and innovation within the emerging domestic market. It is also a funnel for all submitting Solvers to actively participate in our Sustainability Summit. Participants will have the opportunity to present their core competencies and to learn from the competencies of others. 

So it sounds as though the monetary prize for this Challenge, a total of $10,000, is only part of the incentive for Solvers to participate. Is that right?

That is correct. The Sustainability Summit will not only laud four winners of the Challenge, but it will also provide 40 semi-finalists the opportunity to showcase their innovative products or services. As part of this Summit, The Council is promoting an Innovation Arena. Fortune 500 companies, global business entities, venture capitalists, government representatives, environmental thought leaders, and small/medium businesses will have the chance to vet these semi-finalists as resources for their respective needs. The Sustainability Summit will take place at the Sentry Center in New York City on October 9, 2012.

The Council’s mission is to facilitate contract opportunities for Minority-Owned Business Enterprises (MBEs), yet the Challenge is open to all companies. Can you tell us a bit more about that decision?

If diversity drives innovation, our challenge pool must represent the best and brightest. Within that pool of Solvers, businesses representing the emerging domestic market will be highlighted. The Council has always encouraged its certified suppliers to create strategic partnerships, and we believe that this Challenge will facilitate that opportunity. 

You are seeking innovative and sustainable products and services that also bring benefits to urban and rural communities. Could you elaborate on the targeted community criteria, and also talk about US versus global markets?

There is no all-inclusive definition of a sustainable community. The distinction between urban and rural communities is necessary partly because each has its own characteristics that result in unique business opportunities and socio-economic constraints. The Challenge will aid in identifying those Solvers with innovative products and services that typically address the costs and benefits of utilizing their business alternatives. One beneficial aspect to a particular community is that each and every Solver will stimulate job creation. If that particular benefit can grow exponentially to have a national or even global impact, as well as enhance a particular brand, it will certainly meet the general Sustainability parameter of People, Planet and Productivity.

Importantly and uniquely, the US market understands the value of diversity in commerce, far more so than the global community. Particularly illustrative of this is the plethora of public and private certification initiatives. In this, The Council is a proven leader. Stateside, we understand that diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a positive choice that will inevitably affect the bottom line, especially as it relates to sustainability. This Challenge will change the notion of “no innovation here.”

Can you talk a bit more about your corporate members and what they’re looking for?

The Council has worked tirelessly to build membership of over 200 Fortune 500 corporations. They represent the leading brands in their respective industries. Our members realize that they cannot successfully pioneer innovation without opening up their R&D and supply chains to small and medium businesses. In keeping with this realization, several of our corporate members – Ernst & Young, Pfizer, ConEd, IBM, AIG, and others – are enthusiastically serving as part of the Challenge judging panel.

Why is it challenging for your corporate members to connect to available suppliers?

The issue is not the inability to find available suppliers. Rather, the objective is to seek proactive business innovation. All corporate members inherently know their respective business models.  If innovation from suppliers is wanted, corporate members must drive it. Specifically, they must explain their corporate vision, list the challenges involved, and work with suppliers as strategic partners to execute the vision. It is much easier to achieve innovation through a diversity of smaller suppliers. This Challenge will uncover various innovative business solutions and enable our corporate members to adapt these solutions to their specific business models.

What prompted you to use a crowdsourcing approach, and to post your Challenge on the InnoCentive platform?

Over the past 4 years, The Council has been very active in presenting crowdfunding as an alternative financing avenue to its vendor base. The results have been quite impressive. Now, The Council wants to directly tackle the business concerns of both its corporate membership and large certified supplier base as it relates to augmenting an efficient supply chain. Our network represents so many industries with specific issues that the only way to effectively address all was through crowdsourcing. We’re very excited to launch this Challenge with InnoCentive, a highly respected company that has a proven track record of engaging innovative Solvers who impact the economy and social justice globally.

Is there anything else you’d like our Solvers to know about the Challenge and the opportunity it presents?

The Council was very happy to discover that InnoCentive does not typically utilize multimedia videos as part of Solvers’ submissions to Challenges. Therefore, our Challenge becomes one of the first that will allow Solvers to do so. Their video submissions will be posted on our Sustainability Summit website. More importantly, video participants need not win the Challenge to benefit. Displayed videos will highlight benchmarking in Sustainability practices and partnering, thus bringing additional exposure to Solvers.

Thank you very much Kevin. We’re confident that The Council’s Challenge and upcoming Sustainability Summit will be a stunning success!

As we move further into a web-integrated way of running our lives, authentication becomes increasingly important. Better access control and information protection are crucial if we are to keep enjoying the latest technological developments.  

This is the compelling force behind our latest Challenge that we are running with IT solutions provider Emergent Consulting, who is looking for creative ideas in authentication through portable devices in the Emergent Authentication Challenge. These devices are increasingly being utilized for their features like touch screens and sensors, and easier software programming through things like apps, to provide innovative security solutions. Accordingly, there is huge potential for a lot of exciting ideas to come in authentication.

Along these lines, the Challenge is designed to attract innovative individuals and startups to show off what they are up to in this space. First off, there are no requests or claims on IP. Second, the Challenge is an open one: we’re seeking ideas from mobile phones, tablets, handheld consoles, RFID technology, NFC devices, smart cards, GPS – the list goes on. The competition is a great opportunity to showcase what you or your startup can do, whilst competing for a $10,000 prize!

If you are interested and want to learn more, check out the additional details on www.emergentchallenge.com, or contact us directly. 

I am a metallurgist by profession, presently doing a PhD on a “clean steel” project jointly initiated by the MTM, K U Leuven and ArcelorMittal Gent, Belgium.

I obtained my master’s degree (M. Tech) and bachelor’s degree (B.E.) in Metallurgical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai (India) in 2006 and Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (formerly VRCE), Nagpur (India) in 2001. I spent nearly three and half years in the steel industries in operations and R&D before the commencement of my PhD program.

Sometime back in 2009, a friend of mine suggested that I look at InnoCentive. I visited nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion, and the Challenge “Control of Bubble Size in Carbonated Beverages” was a familiar topic. I had worked earlier on metallic foams during my master’s thesis. I had a basic knowledge about the physics of foaming of metals, so I decided to give it a try. I proposed the method to manipulate the characteristics of bubbles in carbonated beverage and I was ecstatic to learn that the proposed method turned out to be the winning solution.

I feel that every problem posted by InnoCentive is an opportunity for the Solvers to push their thinking limits and come out with a solution that is of real practical significance. The statistics shows that there are over 250,000 registered Solvers from all over the world who have developed their thinking/approach to the problem in different educational environments. In such a scenario, even the participation of 0.001% of all the registered users, for a particular Challenge, makes it truly competitive. In this tough competition, proposing the right solution, which the Seeker finds suitable after already trying out all the possible resources/ideas to its disposal, is no mean feat. It makes the winner more confident about his/her creative abilities.

Congratulations to all such unique thinkers. I wish all the InnoCentive users good luck in solving the present and the future Challenges; and I encourage those who are not yet part of InnoCentive to join this global network. Become a Solver!

We recently worked with an organization that defines the lean, entrepreneurial startup model - 60° Pharmaceuticals. 60° Pharmaceuticals, run by Geoff Dow and a small team of  advisors, is trying to change the model of drug development for neglected diseases – using crowdsourcing to build virtual teams for specific research projects.  He then plans to invest a portion of the profits from drug sales into further disease research.  He calls it the “Philanthropic-for-Profit” model.  We asked Geoff to talk to us about his organization and his first Challenge, seeking a team to identify an early lead compound for the treatment of dengue fever.

Hi Geoff – thanks for talking with us today.  You call 60° Pharmaceuticals  a “Philanthropic for Profit” company.  Can you explain what that means?

Hi and thanks for the opportunity to share our plans with the Solver community.

I personally believe that the goals of rewarding investors willing to take risks and achieving an important social objective are not mutually exclusive.  I also think there is no fundamental reason that social missions should only be undertaken by 501cs.

From a practical standpoint it means that the company is structured in such a manner that it is feasible to seek a margin that is in line with community expectations given the kinds of diseases we are targeting. There will also be reinvestment of revenue into new neglected disease R+D. I perceive a great desire in the community for drug and vaccine makers to be more transparent about R+D costs and expectations regarding margins. We are thinking these issues through very carefully.

60° Pharmaceuticals has an interesting business model – with very few employees and a heavy reliance on open innovation and incentives to build virtual teams.  What drew you to this model and how has it worked so far?

That’s an interesting story! The team I worked with to write the business plan had a very spirited debate about the Linux model versus the Microsoft model of innovation. What would work better for drug discovery? My personal perspective is that the best ideas come from the crowd, but there needs to be vision and ownership to move a product forward successfully. From a business standpoint I think it will also mitigate risk and keep costs down.

Everyone in the drug discovery and development community knows from personal experience that there is a lot of risk. We have all heard that drug development is expensive and takes a long time. I do think these factors act as a barrier to innovation, particularly for diseases where margins are going to be lower. The way out of that box is to provide a way to reimburse drug discovery and development costs throughout the value chain based on success in reaching development milestones, so that risk and reward are not such binary outcomes. The FDA’s priority review voucher is a step in the right direction, but isn’t a complete solution. Our goal at 60P is to pioneer an incentives-based approach for drug discovery for neglected diseases.

Your Challenge specifically targets dengue fever.  Can you tell us about the disease and the current state of research?

My friends and family who have had dengue tell me the disease is worse than a very bad case of flu. I almost volunteered for a dengue clinical study until I was told it was worse than malaria, which I have personally experienced. Dengue can quickly progress in some cases to a severe form that may lead to shock, hemorrhage and death. People who experience it may be away from work or school for at least week, and need hospitalization. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that there are probably around 2.5 billion people at risk. We’ve done the math at 60P and we think there are around six million clinical cases causing an economic burden of around $1.7 billion annually. There are no drugs or vaccines approved.

I see this as an excellent time to be involved in dengue drug discovery. It is pretty clear that dengue drugs could play an important role in treating patients if they were available. While dengue vaccines are coming and will play a valuable role in protecting some of the most at risk population, we suspect there will remain a significant case load for the foreseeable future. The state of the R+D infrastructure is maturing rapidly.  In the last few years, the experimental models have improved, and a lot of progress has been made on understanding the biology. I see their being a lot of interest in the research community over the coming years.

Where do you expect the partner to come from?  Are you anticipating that there are already teams working on dengue that would join forces with you?

I think that teams will mostly likely come from small companies or from the academic research community. That is where the majority of inquiries have come from so far. A background in dengue is helpful, but not necessary, as long as the team has the capacity through collaborators or CROs to test compounds in appropriate screens. As a company we are agnostic about the target and approach, but most concerned about the strength of the team.

You focus your research on neglected diseases.  What disease will you tackle next?

Stay tuned! We will be expanding. We are still evaluating the market opportunities, unmet medical need and status of the various global product development portfolios for a number of diseases.  Next year our goal is to post a Challenge where the choice of neglected disease and approach is left open to the community. We will post an update on our website once we have firmed up our plans.

Is there anything else you’d like our Solvers to know about your Challenge or your organization?

The most frequent question we have received is for additional clarity on the size of the funding pool available to our future partners. To get to an early lead for dengue we have set a maximum pool of 250K inclusive of a prize and reimbursable costs to be divided up amongst all successful proposals. Within this cap, we are asking Solvers to define what incentive for success they think is reasonable, and what reimbursable costs are needed. We would also like to understand what funds the Solver is contributing as in kind costs to the effort.

The other question I have received is how many proposals will be funded. Assuming that many technically excellent proposals are received, we may select up to 3. However, this will depend on what kind of proposals we receive, and we won’t make a final decision until after June 5 when all the proposals have been received.

Very interesting – thanks and good luck!

Thank you.