Situations where someone is dependent on someone else to help manage everyday life are very common. We can see these situations in bringing up a child, in the support of individuals with functional disorders, support of family members with special care needs, and in the care of elderly relatives. The care demand varies case by case, but when the dependency increases the burden of the carer increases as well. It is a situation where you cannot choose, you have to handle the consequences of the development. For the carer it is often time consuming, expensive, and stressful and affects the quality of life for everyone involved. Family members are not always able to support each other as much as is needed. We are interested in looking at novel concepts from nature, business, or other areas that may elucidate the dynamics that help promote and maintain altruistic behaviors.
Situations where someone is dependent on someone else to help manage everyday life are very common. We can see these situations in bringing up a child, in the support of individuals with functional disorders, support of family members with special care needs, and in the care of elderly relatives. The burden of taking care of a dependent individual is often time consuming, expensive, and stressful for everyone involved. Due to the large burdens associated with caring for a dependent individual, carers do not always get the support needed. Current social systems exist to help enable people (e.g family members, friends, etc.) to act as caregivers by relieving some of the burden or to provide external support directly to the dependent. However these systems cost a significant amount of money to run and cannot always provide the desired relief. Currently unsupported family care results in large challenges, both financially and emotionally, for many of the individuals involved.
Due to the burdens of being a caregiver, it requires an act of selflessness to move someone to become one, and to achieve the desired outcome, different kinds of resources must be activated. We believe there are existing systems in nature, business, and other areas that may elucidate the dynamics that help promote and maintain altruistic behaviors and that also utilize resources in an efficient way. The goal is to design scenarios for potential systems where care giving is encouraged and underutilized resources are mustered.
This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following unique features:
- There is a guaranteed award. The awards will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $8,000, with at least one award being no smaller than $5,000 and no award being smaller than $1,000.
- The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker. Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solvers grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal.
After the Challenge deadline, the Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the Winning Solution(s).All Solvers that submitted a proposal will be notified on the status of their submissions; however, no detailed evaluation of individual submissions will be provided.
An InnoCentive Ideation™ Challenge is a broad question formulated to obtain access to new ideas, similar to a global brainstorm for producing a breakthrough idea or market survey which may include ideas for a new product line, a new commercial application for a current product, or even a viral marketing idea to recruit new customers. Ideation™ Challenge submissions are typically about two written pages, and Seekers receive a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use all submissions.
In an Ideation™ Challenge, Solvers may:
- Submit ideas of their own
- Submit third party information that they have the right to use and further the authority to convey that right and the right to use and develop derivative works to Seekers
- Submit information considered in the public domain without any limitations on use
Solvers should not reveal any confidential information in their submissions. Often the Ideation™ Challenge will be followed by one or more of the other three Challenge types to further develop the ideas and gain Intellectual Property protection when the concept has been well-defined.
