Perspectives on Innovation

Coming off the heels of The Economist’s Ideas Economy: Human Potential conference in September 2010, the InnoCentive team once again joined The Economist in New York City, this time for a standing room only event focused on Intelligent Infrastructure. This event convened some of the world’s top minds for captivating discussions on energy, architecture, information, transportation, finance, and cities of the future.

The meeting was once again emceed by the charismatic Vijay Vaitheeswaran, global correspondent for The Economist. Among the notable speakers were our very own Dwayne Spradlin, president and CEO of InnoCentive, and our client Judith Rodin, president of The Rockefeller Foundation. Judith was kind enough to give a big shout out to InnoCentive during her segment (InnoCentive has partnered with the foundation on 10 challenges, attracting more than 5,500 Solvers and 500 solution submissions with an 80% success rate). (more…)

In May 2010 we announced our collaboration with The Economist’s Ideas Economy event series to launch The Economist-InnoCentive Challenge on 21st Century Cyber-Schools. Since then we’ve posted two more Challenges in The Economist-InnoCentive series: The Capture of Atmospheric Carbon to Address Global Warming Challenge and The Entrepreneurship Challenge. As a thank you, we would like to extend all Solvers a special registration rate at these two upcoming Economist’s events and invite you to join us!

Ideas Economy: Intelligent Infrastructure Event: Over the next 30 years the global population will nearly double, from 6 billion to almost 12 billion people. Every country in the world has massive infrastructure challenges ahead of it. The Intelligent Infrastructure Event will convene the world’s top minds for captivating discussions on energy, architecture, information, transportation, finance, and cities of the future. Together, we can find smart solutions.

Date and Location: February 16th and 17th, 2011 at Pace University, New York City.
Special Solver Discount Code: Register with code INNC and save $500 off the registration rate.

The Ideas Economy: Innovation Event will focus on entrepreneurship in a disruptive world. Participants at this event will examine how the very meaning of innovation is changing, and why it matters today more than ever. This summit will attract executives who believe in the power of innovation to transform our businesses, our lives, our futures, and our planet.

Date and Location: March 23rd and 24th, 2011 at the Haas School of Business, Berkeley, CA.
Special Solver Discount Code: Register with code INNC and save $500 off the registration rate.

The third Economist Challenge is all about disruption – disruptive innovation that is! The Challenge is to create business models that reinvent the established and prevailing means of doing business. Or in other words, disrupt what is current, which is the very soul of innovativeness.

The Challenge, aptly called Disruptive Innovation , is a great opportunity for innovative business minds, and is perfect for MBA students. As new-comers to the business world, The Economist and InnoCentive believe that MBA students are uniquely positioned to be extremely innovative and disruptive to conventional business models. We want to give you – MBA students – a soap-box to stand on and a large megaphone to call attention to your ideas. This is a perfect opportunity for you to align yourself with The Economist, showcase your innovative ideas (with the potential for funding!) and gain experience and exposure at the Ideas Economy conference in March 2011. Wouldn’t that be a great resume detail!

The business plan can be for a new business or a new model or approach to a current business, but it must embody “disruptive innovation.” Not only will MBA students have the potential to win a cash award of $5,000-$10,000, but the winning Solver will be elevated to the position of speaker or participant at the March 2011 conference in Berkeley, California and will have the perfect opportunity to gain international exposure for themselves and their ideas.

Remember, the “biz plan” can be on ANY subject or topic as long as it is innovative and conventionally disruptive, viable for success and scalable. So put on your thinking caps, let the creative juices flow, unleash your inner disruptiveness and let your imagination soar! Wouldn’t it be awesome to tell your professors, fellow students and future business partners that your business plan was showcased with The Economist!

Earlier this month, The Economist announced a winner in the 21st Century Cyber Schools Challenge.  There were many strong submissions, and the team decided that the two runners up also deserved recognition for their outstanding solutions.  We will be posting solution summaries from the Challenge winner, Andrew Deonarine, as well as the two runners up in this Challenge, Tristram Hewitt and Daniel Rasmus.  Congratulations Andrew, Tristram and Daniel.

Below is a summary of the winning solution from Andrew Deonarine.  To see a larger version of the image, right click and select “view image”

In locations such as South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, children, teens, and adults do not have access to education. Many are illiterate, and cannot make use of books and other learning material. While some technologies, such as inexpensive laptops and tablets have been proposed to address the educational needs of this population, the devices are too expensive, require some degree of literacy, and are difficult to implement in resource poor areas. However, cellular phones have significant penetration in the world’s poorest countries, since they provide a means to make a living. In essence, they comprise a global, untapped computer network.

In this solution, I have presented a cellular phone based technology called EduCell that develops and distributes educational material using a method called PhoneCasting. PhoneCasting allows someone to write their own educational program using their phone and distribute it to other devices. EduCell consists of a piece of software that that runs small multi-lingual “scripts”, easily developed by local teachers in developing countries. Scripts are then assembled with multimedia to create interactive modules that teach reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. Modules can then distributed (PhoneCasted) to millions of other phones via an Internet server, or pre-loaded, at no cost. The benefits of the PhoneCasting technology are significant: a software programmer or knowledge of English is not required to produce content, which democratizes software development. This would, for the first time, make basic literacy and educational material accessible to hundreds of millions of cellular phone users, and their children, around the world.

–Dr. Andrew Deonarine

Earlier this month, The Economist announced a winner in the 21st Century Cyber Schools Challenge.  There were many strong submissions, and the team decided that the two runners up also deserved recognition for their outstanding solutions.  We will be posting solution summaries from the Challenge winner, Andrew Deonarine, as well as the two runners up in this Challenge, Tristram Hewitt and Daniel Rasmus.  Congratulations Andrew, Tristram and Daniel.

Below is Tristram’s summary of his solution:

Imagine a school house in a Nicaraguan village. One hundred students, each with nothing but a laptop, independently engage in their lessons. A precocious twelve year-old collaborates with an Ecuadorian peer on a biology project about rural water contamination over the cyber school learning platform. To her right, an eleven year-old, who tended the family’s coffee plot for the past year, plays a computer game to practice basic addition.

In this cyber school, semi-automated teaching systems power an individualized education. Students learn basic concepts, broken into independent lesson modules, through a mix of multi-media programming, games, interactive assignments, and live teacher contact. Structured peer interactions build creative and critical thinking skills. The teacher’s primary task, then, is not to “stand and deliver” but to facilitate student movement through pre-designed lessons. On the ground level, social workers supervise the school house; encouraging students, engaging parents, and creating the socio-emotional foundation required for academic success.

Grade levels do not exist. Rather, students advance through a course sequence outlined in the primary and secondary school curricula, each of which has a distinct purpose. While primary school teaches the minimum skills and knowledge required for participation in economic and civic life, secondary school prepares students for a vocation or university.

Combined, these elements form a scalable school model. Automated teaching technologies keep costs low by enabling high student-to-teacher ratios. Centrally managed courses improve quality. Local support systems ensure widespread access. Children in the developing world enjoy a newfound opportunity to realize their potential.