Open Innovation
SUCCESS STORIES

Open innovation success stories from a broad range of companies, and a diverse range of open innovation intermediaries.

	Better Results from a Better Pool of People MUJI, Japan Customer-led innovation is one of the most exciting developments in open innovation and it builds on the passion, ingenuity and creativity of a brand’s loyal consumers. We are no longer passive
	Don’t Let Creativity Hit the Buffers: Turn to Open Innovation Bombardier Transportation, Germany Global transportation company Bombardier was looking for ways to whisk itself into the future by imagining what the interiors of trains would look like further along the track. So it organized an ope...
	Lego Success Built on Open Innovation Lego Group, Denmark ...
	Open Innovation Boost to Space Exploration NASA, United States NASA has no shortage of tough technical problems to crack, and though the space agency may be packed to the rafters with top intellects it realizes that it sometimes needs external help to create solu...
	Open Innovation Transforms Data for the Public Good Government of Finland, Finland Streams of raw data of themselves are not interesting, but they can be turned into useful applications that are of great benefit to citizens. For a number of years open innovation has been transform...
	A Novel Way to Test for Sore Throats Mark R. Hartman (Cornell University), United States Typically, an open innovation contest awards a fixed amount of money to the best solution or solutions. The seeker has its problem solved in good time and the provider not only receives financial rew...
	Car Industry Technology Fuels Furniture Innovation Gabriel Ltd, Denmark Open innovation is one of the most cost effective ways for companies to solve their R&D challenges. Many organizations don’t know what they don’t know and they therefore spend (some would say was...
	Tesco’s Successful Open Innovation Experiment Tesco, United Kingdom Tesco is an international grocery retailer, headquartered in the UK and like many of its competitors it has expanded into the online grocery sector. For a couple of years it has been looking at ways
	Inside Powering the Grid with the GE Ecomagination Challenge GE, United States Ranked the world’s second largest business by Forbes and with revenues of $157 billion, GE is a giant global conglomerate with immense resources that is constantly searching for new areas of opportu...
	Mobile Phone Giant Reaches Out to Open Innovation Intermediary Orange UK, United Kingdom When companies want to boost their innovation and make best use of the wisdom of the crowd the role of open innovation brokers or intermediaries is vital to ensuring a successful outcome Most comp...
	Open Innovation: The New Army Recruit United States Army, United States The concept of open innovation is as beautiful as it is elegant; present a problem that needs to be solved, and someone somewhere in the world will be able to come up with the solution. Of increasi...
	Apps for California The State of California, United States The ballot box is not the only means by which the general public can influence the way their neighborhoods, towns and regions are run as open innovation and crowdsourcing are giving people plenty of o...
	Open Innovation for the Future of Management Management Innovation Exchange (MIX), United States The fruits of open innovation are not only product-based as an OI strategy can be applied to reinventing how companies are organized to make them more streamline and effective. Launched in 2010 the...
	Open Innovation to Boost Learning in the Developing World Dr. Andrew Deonarine, Canada If your organisation has already embraced open innovation then it has joined the ranks of some of the world’s most innovative companies who have come to realise that great ideas can come from the ou...
	Space Age Technology to Help Insomniacs Get Some Sleep Quilts of Denmark, Denmark Quilts of Denmark is a small international company, founded in 2000 that operates in more than 30 countries and produces high-quality, functional bedding. The company has engaged in open innovat...
	On Your Bike with Open Innovation Designboom and The Seoul Design Foundation, South Korea In an effort to improve its urban environment with an emphasis on eco-friendly themes, South Korea’s capital city of Seoul has launched a number of initiatives and programs. The Seoul Cycle Design
	Crowdsourcing is Shaking Up the Business Model Made.com, United Kingdom Open innovation and crowdsourcing are rapidly redefining business models. One such company to take advantage of the wisdom of the crowd is a UK-based furniture retailer. Made.com is an online
	Open Innovation Contest to Cut Our Carbon Footprint Greener Gadgets Design Cometition, United States Innovators and entrepreneurial minds are turning their intellectual firepower on how open innovation can benefit the common good. One of the most pressing issues of our time is the damage being done
	Crowdsourcing to Cure Diseases Cure Together, United States Most good doctors will freely admit that they don’t everything about a patient's condition which is why patients are advised to make accurate notes about their symptoms to help the medical professio...
	San Francisco: Where the Powers are Investing in Open Innovation City of San Francisco, United States Many people complain about the policies their governments pursue, and declare that they could do a better job if given half the chance. Well, open innovation is giving them that chance as it offers t...
	Fiat Gets Plenty of Mileage from Open Innovation Fiat, Italy Italian car making giant Fiat has turned up the throttle on open innovation to solicit public involvement in creating the car of the future. The Fiat Mio (which translates as “my Fiat”) is a conc...
	Open Innovation to Advance Children's Learning The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, United States In early 2010 a new US nationwide open innovation competition was launched. The goals of the inaugural Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation in Children’s Learning were to discover and nurture br...
	Innovative Challenge Contest U.S. Economic Development Administration, United States Entrepreneurs, investors, non-profits, foundations and universities were all invited to take part in a US-nationwide open innovation competition designed to support the most creative ideas to drive te...
	Open Innovation Creates Greeting Card Success Story Hallmark Cards, Inc., United States Greetings card manufacturer Hallmark has catapulted its products into the digital era after searching for new technologies via an open innovation broker. Greeting Card Innovation The days when...
	Tomorrow's Designs Today Electrolux, Sweden Electrolux opened its Design lab as an annual, global open innovation design competition in 2003, inviting undergraduate and graduate industrial design students to submit designs for futuristic househ...
	Open Innovation Strategies GlaxoSmithKline, United Kingdom GlaxoSmithKline has delved into the "open innovation" sphere in a multitude of ways. One aspect involves developing a "patent pool" which would give access to IP, such as the assay data involved i...
	Ecomagination Challenge General Electric, United States GE has delved into the open innovation arena, recently launching its Ecomagination Challenge that solicits ideas for new business ventures relating to how to build the next-generation power grid. Any...
	Using Open Innovation to Ensure Competitive Advantage Cadbury, United Kingdom In 2006 Cadbury embraced open innovation, turning to collaboration with external partners to find solutions and innovations they could bring to market. Even though they have global sales topping $7...
	Quirky Collaboration Quirky.com, United States Quirky.com takes the idea of open innovation and crowdsourcing to a whole new level. You submit your ideas for a new product, and have a community of designers, inventors, engineers and marketers,
	Open Innovation that Benefits Humankind James Dyson Award, United States This year's winner of the James Dyson Award for innovation in the UK, goes to Timothy Whitehead, who developed a water purifying bottle that uses ultraviolet light to sterilize drinking water. The...
	Design Contests Spark Creativity Kruger Products, United States Taking a cue from other Fortune 500 companies, Kruger Products ran a design contest, the "Scotties Design Challenge", that asked consumers to create a new look for their popular tissue box. The id...
	LuminAR Places the Internet Anywhere Natan Linder, United States The Tony Stark Innovation Challenge chose MIT graduate student Natan Linder as the winner of its open innovation challenge. Linder's invention, the LuminAR is a digital bulb with built-in internet...
	LG Open Innovation Contest produces 40+ Winning Ideas LG, United States LG Electronics third open innovation contest asked contestants to submit ideas for the next generation cell phone. More than 400 submissions were presented to LG. Of all the ideas submitted, LG deemed...
	Cisco's I-Prize Innovation Competition goes to "Life Account" Team Cisco, United States Awarding it's second I-Prize of $250,000 to a team of five university students from Mexico, has gained Cisco a potential billion-dollar business idea titled: "Life Account." The idea is to gather inf...
	Starbucks betacup open innovation contest aims to reduce Paper Cup Consumption In a recent open innovation contest to reduce paper cup consumption, Starbucks has awarded the winning $10,000 idea to "Karma Cup." Five runners-up were awarded $2,000 each. Currently Starbucks...
	Paper-Feet Paper-Feet, United Kingdom Open innovation offers social entrepreneurs plenty of opportunities to create new ways of addressing social needs or promote better business. Recognising both this and the power of student creati...
	Canada's Digital Compass PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Canada ...
	Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States The <a href="http://challenge.bfi.org/" target=_blank>Buckminster Fuller Challenge</a> is an annual open innovation competition hosted by the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI). It encourages the cre...
	Greensulate Ecovative Design, United States Open innovation contests have long been used by governments and organizations to accelerate the speed with which ideas are generated. They are powerful instruments that can be used by any company or
	WayFinder NYC New York City's Economic Development Corporation, United States The Big Apple wanted some big ideas to improve government transparency and accountability and promote development of the digital media industry. So it came up with an open innovation competition to d...
	Open Venture Challenge Cancer Research UK, United Kingdom Cancer Research UK, one of the UK’s leading cancer charities decided to turn to open innovation to help it raise more money to beat cancer. It was looking for fresh and new ideas to secure more fu...
	Healthy Habits Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation, United States “Rise to the Challenge: Healthcare Innovation 2010” is the first open innovation healthcare related competition of its kind in the United States and was created to encourage participants to create...
	Help for Ireland's Economy AMAS With the world staring down the barrel of financial ruin as the financial crisis lays waste to economies, one enterprising country had a bright idea to help get it out of a fix – ask the public for
	Unilever uses Collaboration to Develop Clean Water Solution Unilever Purell is the breakthrough technology that was developed out of this collaborative effort. Launched in 2005, Purell is now bringing safe drinking water to millions of people, bringing relief from jaun...
	Open Innovation : Multidisciplinary approach Philips Eletronics India Ltd, Manipal University, India Manipal University is a name to remember, not just across the length and breadth of India, but worldwide. The fact that students from 52 countries are studying here is a testimony to this fame. Fired
	Security Jam Security and Defence Agenda, Belgium Open innovation brokers accelerate the innovation process by linking solution seekers with providers, offering technical know-how, and organising open innovation contests and online jams that bring di...
	An Open Innovation Competition to Drive Water Innovation Imagine H2O, United States Water scarcity is one of the world’s biggest woes, and as the climate continues to heat up the planet's governments are latching on to anything that will improve efficiencies. Many ideas have b...
	Bank Queuing Problems Solved by Open Innovation A Commercial Bank in the United Kingdom, United Kingdom With an ever changing marketplace demanding better services and products innovation is key. The walls between companies and consumers are disappearing as boardrooms across the world recognize the imp...
	The Great Innovator Challenge Royal Bank of Canada, Canada Many companies realized long ago that internal R&D is only one part of their innovation portfolio, and it may not even be the driving force behind research efforts. The pace of change is so quick, a...
	Novel Designs for Daimler's Smart Car Daimler, Germany Daimler’s “Style Your Smart” open innovation contest yielded 50,000 ideas in a six week period as 8,000 participants from more than 100 countries used their creativity to help the car manufactur...
	Applications for Democracy Government of the District of Columbia, United States Open innovation has been the driving force behind a number of inspiring initiatives to make governments more open and transparent. Not only do they foster better communications between citizens and
	LifeCase and LifeApp System DiabetesMine, United States The most innovative ideas do not always come from a discipline’s own experts, sometimes answers are provided by individuals or groups in unrelated industries. They are not constrained by a particul...
	Big Green Innovations IBM IBM has open innovation in its blood. Since 2001 the multinational has been holding innovation jams, where thousands of employees brainstorm ideas over a period of a few days. The first jam was an e...
	Open Innovation Solution to a Cotton Shirts Wrinkling Problem Procter and Gamble Procter and Gamble’s decision to give its innovation model a face-lift and adopt open innovation strategies in the early part of the last decade was a daring move by the consumer products giant. I...
	CollaboRhythm The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), United States The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) launched the CIMIT Prize, a US nationwide open innovation competition in 2009. The contest will be an annual feature for the ne...
	A Modeling System for Toddler Training Pants A Consumer Products Company Open innovation has gained importance in recent years as companies from multiple industries realize they could end up as dead as a dodo if they ignore leveraging the expertise of external sources to a...
	Active Networked Tags for Disaster Recovery Applications Vodafone One of the world’s leading telecommunications companies, Vodafone, now hosts an an open innovation competition designed to “promote innovation and increase implementation of wireless related techn...
	Partnership Development for Hilton Hotels Hilton Hotels There is a popular and ever increasing trend amongst businesses to turn away from high-priced consultants, and their own in house teams and instead embrace open innovation contests. Hilton Hotels i...
	Cleaving Protein Disulfide Bonds A Global 500 Company A Global 500 company needed help with a widely known and long-standing industry problem, so it followed a course that an increasing number of companies are taking – it turned to an online open innov...
	Dispensing Mechanism for a Powdered Material in a High Humid Environment A Major Appliance Manufacturer The traditional corporate model of only innovating from within is starting to look a bit dated. An ever increasing number of companies including major global players such as Kraft, Hewlett Packard an...
	Mobile Phone Microscopy for the Developing World and Other Ideas Intel Corporation Businesses are not the only beneficiaries of an open innovation approach to discovering new technologies; communities in the developing world are also benefiting from solutions to some of the most cha...
	Novel Adhesive Systems Fasson Roll North America, a division of Avery Dennison, United States Open innovation has become the hot topic in business since the publication in 2003 of Henry Chesborough’s book ‘Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology’.
	Filibusted The Sunlight Foundation, United States Since the concept of open innovation first swept through the corridors of corporations in 2003 it has continually proved its mettle by helping companies find new ways of solving their most urgent prob...
	Solution for Microwave Oven Heating Problem A Fortune 500 Consumer Products Company One of the many advantages to companies that decide to utilize open innovation is the cross boundary approach to solving technical challenges. A number of organizations have found the answers they nee...
	Natural Food Grade Approaches to Replace Food Dyes and Pigments General Mills, United States General Mills is a Fortune 500 corporation headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota that markets some of the world’s most popular brands including Yoplait, Pillsbury, Green Giant, Häagen-Dazs, and...
	Suburban Trends The Australian Government, Australia One of the most successful and powerful trends in open innovation is the concept of mashups – where a new innovative web-based service or application is created from the combination of the data or f...
	Confidential Cheese Product Solution A Global Dairy Manufacturer An ever increasing number of companies – both large and small – have been reaching beyond their core competencies and adopting open innovation strategies to remain competitive in an increasingly d...
	Mobile-Based Museum Guide Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen and SYSTEMS, Germany To access the best brains around the world and to come up with innovative and practical applications in satellite navigation Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (an aerospace and satellite company...
	Air Conditioning Solutions Inter-American Development Bank, Panama In the ceaseless search for new ideas, the open innovation landscape offers a planet full of brilliant brains with the skills to generate solutions and novel ways of thinking. Cash-based contests are...
	Taxi2 Website Virgin Atlantic, United Kingdom Virgin Atlantic has been flirting with open innovation to help it come up with new web-based ideas to improve its services and boost its bank balance. Together with NESTA, the UK’s National End...
	Development of a Valve for Packaging Material Sealed Air Corporation, United States Sealed Air Corp is a global manufacturer of packaging materials and systems including Bubble Wrap, and it has fully embraced open innovation to boost the bottom line. Although no strangers to wor...
	Multiple Solutions for Packaging Processes Greif, Inc., United States Greif is a global industrial packaging products and services company with a presence in more than 45 countries. Due to an intense phase of restructuring involving mergers and acquisitions, and hot on...
	The Big Green Challenge NESTA, United Kingdom In 2007 an open innovation challenge was set for the entire UK – reduce carbon emissions and make a big difference to the world. A £1 million ($1.6 million USD) prize fund was set up which spurred...
	Open Innovation Solution to a Detergent Packaging Problem A small UK-based company, United Kingdom Faulty packaging, falling sales, and a problem they couldn’t solve led Procter and Gamble to an open innovation broker to help them find a fix and reverse the decline. Packaging Problem The gl...
	Internet-based Carpooling Service iCarpool.com, United States In a gigantic effort to cut down on traffic congestion and reduce pollution the Intelligent Transport Society of America (ITS) launched a global open innovation competition for commuters, citizens, en...
	Xoie - Reusable Rocket Masten Space Systems, United States The space agency NASA continues to develop means of exploring the solar system with down-to- earth help via open innovation contests. Lunar Lander Challenge The Lunar Lander Challenge required
	Identifying Auxiliary Web Images Using Combination of Analyses Tewson Seeoun, Choochart Haruechaiyasek, Toshiaki Kondo, Thailand Hewlett Packard wants customers to enjoy a better and greener experience when they print web pages so they sought a solution through an open innovation challenge for multimedia researchers across the
	kReader Mobile knfb Reading Technology, Inc., United States Mobile phone supplier Nokia is actively engaged in open innovation through its research center and via open innovation contests. Global Open Innovation Competition “Calling All Innovators” i...
	Layered MagWheel David A. Gonzales II, United States How we fuel the future is one of today’s biggest challenges. Increasingly corporations and research organizations are exploring open innovation avenues for new ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions....
	Dancing Crazy Stacy Cho, United States HopeLab is a nonprofit research organization that looks to improve the quality of life of young people with chronic illnesses, and it ventured down the open innovation route when it was looking for ne...
	A Novel Long-Lasting Roller for Color Printers Michigan Molecular Institute, United States Xerox is a corporation with impressive R&D capabilities, yet it has embraced open innovation to strengthen the potential of its own world class researchers. Stuck with a Printer Problem The comp...
	MPrize for World’s Oldest Ever Mouse Prof Andrzej Bartke, United States Inspired by the X Prize open innovation competition, the MPrize (formerly known as the “Methuselah Mouse Prize”) is a scientific research prize awarded to scientists who can successfully extend th...
	CC Modular Mobile Phone Emily Albinski, United States By engaging with open innovation LG Mobile Phones has accessed a vast talent pool that would be far beyond the means of most companies. Not only might this lead to a new product and new customers, bu...
	RidgeBlade Dean Gregory, United Kingdom The annual Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is a major open innovation competition held in the Netherlands to encourage the creation of green products and services. It is open to individual inventor...
	New Methodology for Ceramics Production Wolfgang Schaerfl, Germany Corona Ceramics, headquartered in Bogota in Columbia has been developing and manufacturing home improvement products for more than 125 years, and is now including open innovation as part of its resear...
	Otis LaserMotive, United States NASA continues its bold exploration of space, but it’s not doing it alone. Increasingly the space agency is turning to open innovation competitions to help it develop the technologies it will need
	Twoddler Bart Swennen, Gert Vos, and Johannes Taelman, Belgium Governments in Europe are now actively looking to web 2.0 tools and open innovation to improve public services. There is a growing body of opinion in Europe that says that the development of IT appl...
	Dow Methane Challenge Prof Graham Hutchings, Wales, and Prof Tobin Marks, United States The Dow Chemical Company is one of the largest chemical manufacturing companies in the world and though it boasts an extensive and well-funded R&D organization it is turning to open innovation to give...
	Metal-complexing Dye and Surfactant Giorgia Sgargetta, Italy Procter and Gamble needed help with a pressing problem. Some of their best in-house brains were unable to crack a challenge that the company had set for the creation of a new dishwashing detergent.
	Energy Efficient Air Conditioning John Barrie and Dr Norbert Muller, United States It gets hot in the city, and though air conditioning will cool you down and chill you out, the technology uses a lot of energy. An open innovation competition was created by two organizations in Bost...
	An Acid Synthesis Method David Bradin, United States One of the benefits of open innovation is that someone somewhere may already have the answer to a problem that’s been vexing you for ages. That’s certainly what Procter and Gamble found when they...
	One Billion Rides Aaron M. Renn, United States Chicago is notorious for its traffic problems with bottlenecks and gridlock daily occurrences experienced by many drivers. To get the city moving the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce posted an open in...
	Method to Get Fluoride Powder into Toothpaste Tubes Edward Melcarek, Canada Colgate-Palmolive turned to open innovation to help it solve a challenge that had bewildered and bemused its R&D department. After many failed attempts the R&D types at Colgate-Palmolive could only...
	BoGo Light SN2 Russell McMahon, New Zealand Mark Bent, CEO of SunNight Solar turned to open innovation to help create a better design for the solar-powered flashlight that he had created for the developing world. Solar Solution A former m...
	Preliminary Biomarkers for a Fatal Degenerative Disease Seward Rutkove and Dr. Harvey Arbesman, United States Prize4Life, a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding new cures and treatments for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) has turned to open innovation to speed u...
	Solar-Powered Mosquito Trap Tom Kruer, United States It is thanks to open innovation that millions of malaria carrying mosquitoes will be breathing their last. Human sweat, sunlight and paraffin wax are the main ingredients of a groundbreaking trap that...
	Solar-Powered Wireless Router Zacary Brown, United States ASSET India is dedicated to alleviating poverty in the subcontinent by providing IT skills and opportunities to victims of trafficking and children of sex workers. The foundation adopted an open innov...
	Open Notebook Science Professor Jean-Claude Bradley, United States Jean-Claude Bradley is Associate Professor of Chemistry at Drexel University and has worked in many laboratories throughout his scientific career. One aspect of lab life has always irritated him and
	Ushahidi Ory Okolloh, Kenya Even though we live in a 24 hour news society the mainstream media is not large enough to cover every story when it breaks. During crisis situations there is hardly ever a centralized place for repor...
	Drug Manufacturing Process for PA-824, am Anti-TB Drug Dr. Kana M Sureshan, India When the non-profit Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) needed to solve some drug manufacturing problems it turned to open innovation for the answers. Tuberculosis is an infectiou...

Page: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7     Next»