Open Innovation Contest for Cancer Solutions

November 4, 2015 By IdeaConnection

NSCCancer is one of the most insidious diseases to plague humans, but now it has a new enemy –the Nanotechnology Start-up Challenge for Cancer (NSC2).

This recently launched open innovation initiative is an international search for nanotechnology cancer-related inventions that will make a positive and powerful impact on human health.

The competition developed in the U.S. from a partnership between the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI) and the National Cancer Institute’s Technology Transfer Center.  It aims to bring promising cancer nanotechnology inventions (such as diagnostics, medical devices and therapeutics) to market.

Multidisciplinary Approach

One of the main requirements to enter the competition is that participants form multidisciplinary teams that must include people with scientific/medical backgrounds, a serial entrepreneur and legal and business expertise.  The competition wants to reach beyond those it calls the ‘usual suspects’ and increase the number of citizen solvers and entrepreneurs taking part. Individuals can build their team by using the member search function on the competition’s web portal.

There are four different phases to the challenge:

  • Phase 0: Enter Challenge – the closing date for this is February 11th 2016
  • Phase 1: Elevator Speech – participants develop an elevator speech about their proposal, and selected winners will go through to the next phase
  • Phase 2: Business Plan – teams develop a 10-page business plan, and the winning teams in this phase will receive a $2,000 and go through to the next phase
  • Phase 3: Start-up – teams launch their start-ups

For more information about this open innovation challenge, click here.


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