Open Innovation
SUCCESS STORIES

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

	Leveraging Snow Plow Data to Clear a City’s Roads School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, United States Every winter when the elements dump a lot of snow on towns, cities and roads out come the snow plows and gritting trucks to help people move about. In the United States, the city of Syracuse is one of...
	Open Innovation Quest to Protect NFL Players from Concussion National Football League and others, United States For the National Football League (NFL) in the United States and its players concussion is a major issue that has been dominating the headlines for years. In 2017 alone, a record 291 concussions were r...
	Open Innovation Tackles Agricultural Challenges Agri-Tech East, United Kingdom Agriculture like many other industries has a lot of intractable problems. In an attempt to solve some of them a business focused cluster of organizations in the UK called Agri-Tech East hosted a hacka...
	Crowdsourcing Algorithms to Stop Illegal Fishing The National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office, United States Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is a huge problem worldwide that puts fishing stocks under greater pressure, threatens food security and the livelihoods of coastal communities and is...
	Big Data Analytics and Landslide Prediction University of Melbourne, Australia Landslides are large movements of rock, earth and debris down a slope driven by gravity. They can occur suddenly or move slowly over a longer period and can be triggered by a number of factors. These ...
	Open Innovation Solutions for Hajj Safety Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, Saudi Arabia Every year more than two million people travel to Saudi Arabia to complete the Hajj pilgrimage. This journey to Mecca is seen as one of the five pillars of Islam and is central to the faith. Pilgrims ...
	Algorithms to Better Predict Epileptic Seizures University of Melbourne, Australia Epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder in the world affecting more than 65 million people of all ages. It is characterized by unpredictable and unprovoked seizures. A seizure is a s...
	Breakthrough AI Technology as Good as Experts Moorfields Eye Hospital/DeepMind, United Kingdom A 2018 study by Moorfields Eye Hospital in London (the oldest eye hospital in the world) and the Google company DeepMind discovered that artificial intelligence can diagnose some eye diseases as well ...
	Answering Big Questions about the Universe with Big Data The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Netherlands Whether you engage a large crowd or a small collection of individuals with subject matter expertise a hackathon can result in new products and breakthrough solutions in a short space of time. To help ...
	Big Data Solutions for French Multinational Air Liquide, France If used properly, data can become one of the most important assets a company possesses. More of it is being generated than ever before and it's driving a new era of innovation. But making sense of a...
	Big Data Keeps London Moving Transport for London, United Kingdom Like every major city around the world, London has a huge transport infrastructure that is not without its challenges as it tries to move millions of people every day. In fact, the UK capital's road n...
	The Rise of Big Data in Detecting Insurance Fraud Insurance industry, United States Insurance fraud is a huge problem that costs insurers billions of dollars. In testimony to the USA Congress in 2017, the head of the Insurance Information Institute estimated that the cost to the ind...
	Big Data Solutions for Porsche Driverless Technology Porsche, Germany The race to driverless cars is pitching tech giants against traditional car manufacturers in a global effort to build businesses selling vehicles that don't need human drivers. It has been the stuff o...
	The Big Data Revolution in Soccer The German national soccer team and others, Germany In the summer of 2018, soccer fans from all over the world had their eyes on Russia for the World Cup, a global competition in which 32 international teams competed for the most prestigious prize in t...
	Using Open Data to Tackle Sustainable Development Challenges UNESCO, Singapore Water pollution is a big issue in Vietnam and it has a number of causes including weaknesses in industrial wastewater management and a lack of awareness among citizens who dump rubbish in rivers, cana...
	How AI is Bringing a Paradigm Shift to Brain Disorders University of Bari, Italy The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine has been evolving so well in recent years that it can be incorporated into real-world clinical practice. By making use of machine learning, big dat...
	How Gatwick Airport is Embracing Big Data Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom Increasingly airlines and airports are starting to embrace big data and data analytics to improve their operations and the customer experience. These days air travel is no longer considered a luxury,...
	Big Data Solutions for Public Health Issues San Diego State University, United States No matter what industry you are or were in there's a chance that the use of big data is making a big impact, or if it hasn't it will do soon. The big data revolution is the key to solving many proble...
	Data Analytics to Support Learning and Teaching University of British Columbia, Canada The education sector like many others is embracing the power and potential of data and data analytics. It's early days but with more courses going online there is a lot of research to be done to fig...
	How Big Data is Transforming Education Education Sector, United States Leveraging large amounts of data has been eagerly embraced by multiple industries. From agriculture and healthcare to retail and banking, gleaning insights from data is making a tremendous impact, he...
	Using AI and Deep Learning to Predict Mortality Google, United States "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes," wrote Benjamin Franklin. While we will all one day shuffle off this mortal coil the timing and nature is not certain. However...
	Artificial Intelligence Portal for Job Opportunities BFM-Edge Business School, Malaysia The nature of innovation has been changing in recent years, characterized by a greater openness. Companies of all sizes are encouraging internal departments to collaborate with each other as well as ...
	AI Hackathon leads to Product Enhancement Applaud Solutions, United Kingdom As companies embrace open innovation in greater numbers more are looking to hackathons as vehicles for innovation where participants work intensively in teams or own their own to solve problems or dev...
	Rail Industry Makes Tracks with Big Data Union Pacific, United States With big data comes insights and strategies that can lead to costs savings, improved efficiencies and better systems. The transport industry collects a lot of data from a variety of sources and unders...
	Using Big Data to Find Solutions to the Refugee Crisis United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Switzerland The number of refugees around the world is truly shocking. According to figures by the UNHCR the UN Refugee Agency, there are currently around 22.5 million people who have fled countries such as Syri...
	Improving the Retail Experience with Big Data A.S. Watson Group, Hong Kong One important way that retailers get ahead of each other and steal a march on their competitors is by enhancing the experiences they offer their customers. When many stores, shops and boutiques eithe...
	Turning Raw Data into Models to Improve Aviation Fuel Efficiency Honeywell International Inc., United States Aviation fuel is expensive, contributing to about 30% of the operating costs of airlines. It also has a considerable carbon footprint. According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, aviatio...
	Improving Airport Security with Better Algorithms Department of Homeland Security/Transportation Security Administration, United States Data science competitions are an increasingly popular way for companies to solve complex big data projects. They're relatively low cost and pit hundreds if not thousands of the smartest amateur and pr...
	Combating Infectious Diseases with Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence in Medical Epidemiology (AIME), United States Many of our 21st-century problems can be solved by big data and artificial intelligence. One of those challenges is improving our ability to forecast future infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics ...
	Artificial Intelligence Innovations for Education OpenEd.ai, United States Artificial intelligence has been around for a long time, but recent years have seen an increased buzz about its use and possible applications in dozens of industries. Additionally, big tech companies...
	Using Big Data to Improve London’s Transport Network Transport for London, United Kingdom Like many big cities, London has a vast transport network to get its citizens and visitors safely from A to B in a timely fashion. Doing so is a complex task as millions of tube, bus and rail passenge...
	Royal Navy Search for Novel AI Solutions Ministry of Defense, United Kingdom Data and artificial intelligence offer a lot of opportunities for improving defenses. While partially autonomous and intelligent systems have been a critical part of military technology since at least...
	Big Data Systems and AI to Cut Electricity Bills University of Queensland, Australia Artificial intelligence is going to be used to cut power bills in thousands of homes across Queensland, Australia. The University of Queensland, an energy start-up called Redback Technologies and othe...
	Basketball and Business Data Analytics Solutions for the NBA National Basketball Association, United States Big data and analytics are making huge inroads into sports. From an athlete’s rate of respiration to the timing of a touchdown, the speed of a lap and the percentage of first serves won, sporting a...
	Hasbro Gets New Game Product via Open Innovation Hasbro, Inc, United States Hasbro is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The American multinational has been in business since its founding in 1923 and owns a number of hugely popular game brands such as Monopoly, My L...
	Open Innovation Search for Healthcare Solutions Humana Inc., United States Artificial intelligence is a fast-moving field with dramatic changes to society and the economy predicted. It is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous presence in our lives and its impact will be felt in mul...
	Open Innovation is Making an Impact in the Hotel Industry Park Inn by Radisson, United Kingdom Hotels like businesses in all other industries face numerous challenges and have to innovate to improve their offerings, gain a competitive advantage and thrive. Standing still is rarely if ever a go...
	Open Innovation for Business Reforms in Nigeria The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, Nigeria Once considered a pastime of caffeine and pizza-fueled geeks, hackathons are now increasingly being seen as a way for companies to innovate and for organizations to uncover solutions for the benefit o...
	Combating Fake News with Open Innovation Yale University, United States In recent times fake news has been spreading like a plague throughout the world. The lies and false information are purposefully created to confuse and misinform. Among the reasons why so many peopl...
	Open Innovation Boost for Medication Adherence National University of Singapore, Singapore Open innovation is fueling an exciting phase of creativity and ingenuity in the health and medical care sectors involving individuals and organizations from multiple disciplines all over the world. ...
	Open Innovation Provides Sustainable Building Solutions Climate-KIC, Norway In 2015 in Europe, the EU Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation designated open innovation a political priority for the EU Commission (one of several organizations that manage the European...
	Breakthrough Ice Cream Product via Open Innovation Solo Gelato, Israel Just as domestic kitchens or workplaces can be stocked with machines dispensing coffee, wine and soda drinks in an instant, there is now a device that serves up instant fresh ice cream. The machine is...
	Innovative Breakthroughs with Nokia Open Innovation Challenge Nokia, Finland For many years Nokia has engaged in open innovation practices to expand innovation opportunities exponentially, opening the door to external collaborators from multiple industries. It does this in se...
	Harnessing New Ideas Through Open Innovation John Keells Holdings, Sri Lanka Ideas are the lifeblood of innovation but they only have currency if acted upon. Open innovation competitions often generate a lot of interest and novel concepts with prize money being awarded to the ...
	Disruptive Open Innovation Event Yields Novel ADHD Diagnosis Tool reVIVE/TechCrunch, United States For one weekend in May 2017 Pier 36 in New York was a feverish hub of creativity and imagination as hundreds of developers, engineers and innovators took part in the Disrupt NY 2017 hackathon organize...
	Open Innovation Solutions to the Opioid Epidemic U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Opioid abuse is a huge problem in many countries. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the United States, 90 Americans a day are overdosing on opioids. Since 1999 overdose deat...
	Diagnosing Plant Diseases with Artificial Intelligence University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, United States For two exciting days in July 2017, the Urban Hive in Sacramento, California was a hub of feverish intellectual activity and creative endeavors. More than 40 people who hailed from across the US compe...
	Mining Big Data for Innovative Solutions The European Commission, Belgium There are huge volumes of data swirling around within and between organizations. Tapping into the facts, figures, files and statistics to innovate isn't a new concept but what is a relatively recent d...
	Breakthrough Thinking for Hospital Electrical Systems Schneider Electric, United States As open innovation has grown and developed in recent years more and more innovators have signed up to take part in challenges, contests, and hackathons. Often, they devote a lot of time toward finding...
	New Lego Play Set via Open Innovation The Lego Group, Denmark The toy industry like many others needs to innovate to survive. To meet an insatiable audience demand for novelty several companies regularly tap into the creativity and imaginations of its end users....
	Open Innovation for the Future of Public Transportation Transport Systems Catapult, United Kingdom When Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) a UK-based innovation center for intelligent mobility was looking for the next big thing in transportation it turned to the wisdom of the crowd. The organization ...
	Open Innovation Approach to Creating Novel Home Appliances GE Appliances, United States Companies looking to continually innovate can benefit from engaging with open innovation. Doing so can open the doors to different ways of thinking that can lead to new products and services and a gre...
	Open Innovation for a Predator-Free New Zealand Landcare Research, New Zealand In recent years, New Zealand has embarked on a drive to become predator free. Invasive predators such as feral cats, ship rats, stoats, and possums threaten the survival of native species. To counter ...
	Open Innovation Catalyzes Life-Changing Innovations Vodafone, United States Multinational telecommunications company Vodafone engages with open innovation in a number of ways. For example, through its Enterprise Innovation Program it provides a place where customers and small...
	Porsche Open Innovation Contest Aims to Disrupt Car Industry Porsche, Germany Blockchain technology is the distributed, encrypted ledger technology that powers the crypto currency bitcoin, an ingenious invention that consists of a continually growing list of records (blocks) wh...
	How Open Innovation is Improving Satellite Intelligence Analysis The Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, United Kingdom If you want to tap into brilliant minds no matter where they are in the world engage with open innovation. Who knows where the solutions lie to the problems and challenges that vex you? The UK's De...
	Open Innovation Tackles Dementia Care Challenges Facebook/UK Government/HackerNest, Canada You only have to do a little bit of search engine interrogation to see how widespread hackathons have become and the brilliant results they are generating. These open innovation events are proven for...
	Novel Solutions to Infrastructure Problems American Society of Civil Engineers, United States There's nothing quite like the thrill of an intellectual challenge and the carrot of possible financial reward to focus bright and creative minds on problem solving. The open innovation contest has fu...
	Open Innovation Search for Data-Driven Solutions for the Urban Environment Government of the Republic of Korea There is no need to reinvent the wheel, not if a solution to your problem already exists or someone else can work it out for you. All you need to do then is go and find them. That is one of the bene...
	Open Innovation Solutions for Aging US Infrastructure Association of Equipment Manufacturers, United States On August 1 2007 during the evening rush hour, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis suddenly collapsed, killing thirteen people and injuring many more. The cause was later discovered to ...
	Open Innovation Drone Project Reaches for the Skies DHL, Germany There are lots of ways companies can engage external smarts through open innovation, such as open innovation challenges, hackathons, innovation contests and technology scouting. An approach that is p...
	Open Innovation for Vegas Smart City Efforts ReadWrite/Amazon Alexa, United States Las Vegas may well be known as a hedonistic playground of gambling, girls and all-night parties, but it is also something of a test bed for smart city technologies and services. While definitions ...
	Open Innovation Boost for Enrollment in Oncology Clinical Trials Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, United States Cancer is one of the most dangerous and devastating illnesses today, a complex mix of diseases with different causes, patterns and development paths. Much is understood, but much is also unknown. Ope...
	Leveraging Open Innovation for Climate Resilience World Bank, United States Innovations are vital for addressing one of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change and its impact on life on this planet. At the same time, there is a big data revolution sweeping the g...
	Addressing Flooding Issues through Open Innovation Glasgow City Council/Innovate UK/Climate-KIC, United Kingdom Glasgow, the biggest city in Scotland is at high risk of severe flooding events. Extreme rainfall, tidal rivers, aging sewers and the fact that much of it sits on a floodplain are the leading contribu...
	Solving Prostate Cancer Challenges with Open Innovation DREAM/Sage Bionetworks, United States The DREAM Challenges are an open innovation project that uses big data to solve very tough challenges in the realms of medicine. Participants come from across the globe and include university researc...
	Open innovation Tackles Packaging Industry Challenges Dutch Packaging Association, Netherlands "Packaging must constantly rejuvenate," according to Michaël Nieuwesteeg, the managing director of the Dutch Packaging Association (NVC). He was talking to a reporter in the run-up to De Gouden Noot...
	Open Innovation Drives Sustainable Transportation Solutions The Youth For Public Transport Foundation, Belgium The pace of innovation can be frustratingly slow for many different reasons. Intellectual property protections maybe weak, intellectual and financial resources might be thin on the ground, there coul...
	Open Innovation Builds a House with Big Data Hemnet and Tham & Videgård, Sweden Sweden is a country that has wholeheartedly embraced the sharing economy, engaging in numerous crowdsourcing and open innovation initiatives on a national scale. This has included putting the country...
	An Example of Open Innovation Success with Procter & Gamble Procter & Gamble, United States Open innovation works. Conceptually, it has always been a nifty concept, albeit an abstract one for some organizations. However, claims about its many benefits are backed up by several academic stud...
	DHL Receives Delivery of Novel Solutions via Open innovation DHL, Germany Parcel company DHL is a firm believer in the potential of open innovation to help businesses and industries to grow. And recognizing the need for innovation in the logistics industry, it has repeated...
	How Johnson & Johnson are Accelerating Product Development with Open Innovation Johnson & Johnson, United States In recent years, Johnson & Johnson has embarked on an ambitious open innovation program. One part of this is throwing open its doors to smaller enterprises and startups by providing "no strings attac...
	Open Innovation Ideas for Smart Cities KPIT Technologies Limited, India Smart cities are defined as urban regions that are highly advanced in terms of infrastructure and that use technology to share information and improve the quality of services and life for citizens. A...
	Innovation Teams Generate Common Good Solutions New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), United Arab Emirates Every year, NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) organizes a three-day global hackathon, inviting students and mentors from all over the world to come up with ideas to benefit the common good. It is a great example ...
	Developing Innovations for the Sharing Economy Innovate UK, United Kingdom The sharing economy, also known as the access economy and the peer-to-peer economy is a trend that is growing fast. It is built around the sharing and renting/hiring of physical, human and intellectua...
	How Open Innovation Can Help AirAsia Improve the Customer Experience AirAsia, Malaysia The best ideas don't often come from a single person, a lone inventor working in isolation - they're the result of collaboration. One of the most exciting ways to collaborate is to get smart peopl...
	Open Innovation Talent Search Finds Novel Social Platform NTT Data, Japan A subheading of NTT DATA's global Open Innovation Business Contest 5.0 was 'Let's innovate together, the solutions nobody has imagined'. It neatly summed up two of the hallmarks of open innovation - ...
	Open Innovation Generates Novel Uses for a Natural Citrus Fiber Fiberstar, United States Nobody knows where the next big idea is going to come from. Allowing all stakeholders and interested parties to get involved in brainstorming, ideation and innovation, and not just the R&D department...
	Disrupting Gold Mining with Open Innovation Goldcorp/Integra Gold Corp, Canada In 2000, Goldcorp astonished the mining industry by releasing its proprietary geological data for an open innovation initiative that challenged participants to tell the company where best to dig for g...
	Open Innovation Approach to Redesigning Hotel Rooms Eurostars Hotels, Spain Eurostars Hotels is a hotel chain based in Barcelona, Spain with 90 establishments in many European countries as well as Mexico City. Currently, it has set itself the challenge of reinventing the hot...
	Hackathon to Find Ways to Use Robots to Address Elderly Healthcare Needs Segway Robotics/MIT, Singapore So you’ve got a technical challenge you need solving or you want some fresh thinking applied to one of your products. What’s more, you’d like the answers quickly: what can you do? How about ge...
	Open Innovation Call to Help Astronauts Poop Safely in Space NASA, United States When you need to go, you need to go. But, what if you’re an astronaut on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station and you get the call of nature? Currently, you would relieve yourself ...
	Combating Fake News with Open Innovation HeroX, United States In an era of fake news, truth and verifiable facts are taking a back seat. Websites and organizations are deliberately pumping out false stories, hoaxes, lies and misinformation that purports to be re...
	A Big Step Forward for ALS Treatment Research Prize4Life, United States Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that causes the death of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Affected people gradually lose the ability to speak, eat, move and...
	Open Innovation Delivers Disruptive Formula 1 Ideas Formula 1/Tata Communications, India As well as being home to some of the fastest racers on the planet, Formula 1 is also a hotbed of innovation, a fantastic laboratory where new technologies are developed, tested and introduced. In rec...
	Open Innovation Platform Delivers Autonomous Bus Local Motors, United States One of the many companies out there to have taken the open innovation ball and run with it is Local Motors. Most of the vehicles it produces are designed by people who don't work for the business. Cus...
	Rescue Robot for Disaster Relief Wins Open Innovation Challenge Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea In March 2011, Japan was rocked by a mega-earthquake and tsunami. The natural disaster crippled the Fukushima nuclear power station, leading to the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Workers at t...
	A Timely Idea to Inspire Healthy Eating Electrolux, Sweden Food and beverage companies are increasingly looking outside their four walls to enhance their internal R&D expertise. They are taking advantage of a wealth of open innovation approaches, such as comp...
	Open Innovation and the Refugee Crisis The European Commission, Belgium In 2016, more than 220,000 people fled to Europe to escape conflict, disaster and unrest. During the previous year that figure was more than one million. This unprecedented flow of people, many of wh...
	Open Innovation Search for Disruptive Technologies Cisco Systems, United States The phrase "disruptive innovation" was coined by business consultant and author Clayton M. Christensen and examined in his book ‘The Innovator's Dilemma’. It describes an innovation that creates ...
	Open Innovation Event Helps Safety Agencies Solve Operational Challenges Motorola, Australia A riot in a crowded bar, a public demonstration that turns violent, a hurricane that devastates a region and acts of terrorism are just some of many potential threats that public safety organizations ...
	Open Innovation Boost to Drug Development AstraZeneca, United Kingdom AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical company that since March 2014 has been ramping up its medical research efforts. That was when it launched a massiv...
	Conglomerate Reaps Benefits of Open Innovation John Keells PLC, Sri Lanka Let's say you are a company or organization that wants to know what is going to be the next biggest thing or in which direction your industry is heading, what can you do? Sure you can do your own rea...
	Open Innovation Contest Yields Eye Tracking Sticky Smartphone ZTE Corporation, China Involving customers in the creation and delivery of products can be a cost-effective and faster way of meeting insatiable consumer demand for continual innovation. After all, customers know their fav...
	Addressing the Water Crisis through Open Innovation Approaches Embassy of Sweden in Hanoi, Viet Nam For many years, the world has been in the midst of a global water crisis. According to the World Health Organization, 663 million people (1 in 10) lack access to safe water, and by 2025 two thirds of...
	Ireland’s First Ever Energy Hackathon Uncovers Bright Energy Ideas Electricity Supply Board, Ireland While complex issues cannot be solved overnight, open innovation events such as hackathons can bring new technologies, new ideas and diverse talents together, resulting in the emergence of novel and p...
	Open Innovation Challenge Helps to Change the Way a UK Company Innovates Red Ninja, United Kingdom Big cities are exciting and colorful places to live. They are filled with opportunities, history and are alive with cultural experiences. But they are not without their problems. Cities are congeste...
	Hackathon to Help Refugees U.S. Embassy in Ireland, Ireland The global refugee crisis is one of the most pressing social problems of our time. Millions of people have abandoned their homes because of war, conflict and persecution in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq a...
	Global Challenge Uncovers Intelligent Lighting Solutions for the Home Make Magazine, United States An individual's imagination is truly a powerful thing. But why settle for one person's ideas and flights of fancy when you can bring together the imaginations of lots of inventive and creative minds ...
	Open Innovation Contest Yields Innovative Automotive Solutions MI Innovation Alliance/SAE International/NextEnergy, United States Open innovation challenges provide a shortcut to the lengthy process inherent in large organizations of getting an idea off the drawing board and into the marketplace. They can bring new innovations ...
	Open Innovation Gives Graphene Startup a Major Boost Graphenea, Spain Graphene doesn't exist in nature. As the name suggests, this new nanotechnology material is extracted from graphite, which is used in pencils. It is formed of a single layer of carbon atoms and is th...
	Cutting-Edge Ideas Win Healthcare Open Innovation Challenge American Medical Association, United States Like the software, automobile, agriculture and telecommunications industries, the healthcare and medical technology industry are also engaging with open innovation initiatives. These are opening the d...
	Open Innovation Car Contest Rewards Novel Concepts Valeo, France The field of automotive technology never stops as the auto industry is constantly reinventing its offerings, bringing us new technologies that enhance fuel efficiency, our safety and the driving exper...
	Insurance Challenge Provides Low-Risk Platform for Innovation ACORD, United States The insurance industry, like many others needs to innovate for a multitude of reasons - to do things better, for economic growth, for survival, for better returns, to take advantage of opportunities a...
	Searching for Sporting Innovations through Hackathons Manchester City Football Club, United Kingdom Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) in the UK is one of the biggest soccer sides in the world and like many top flight sporting clubs, a commercial powerhouse. In an effort to innovate faster and b...
	Students Solving Global Problems via Open Innovation Challenges The Global STEM Alliance, United States Our world is beset by huge problems, such as bio-security, health in poor countries, land use reform and climate change. There are no easy answers, but one thing is for sure and that is that great mi...
	Novel Ideas to Tackle a Seaside Resort's Challenges Brighton and Hove City Council, United Kingdom Through open innovation projects, citizens can make a big difference to their towns, cities, villages and neighborhoods. Governments tap into a citizenry's collective intelligence to tackle proble...
	Open Innovation Contest Tackles Autism Housing Problems Autism Speaks, United States Currently, the majority of adults with autism live with their parents because there are few other options available to them. But what will they do and how will they live when their aged folks are no ...
	Open Innovation gives Mars Research a Stellar Boost NASA, United States Mars is definitely a hot topic on the space agenda. Currently, NASA is planning to launch a rover mission in 2020 and its first manned mission to the red planet is slated for the 2030s. The trips wi...
	Open Innovation Partnership Leads to Novel Freight Container Device IBM Denmark, Denmark IBM Denmark is a Danish technology and consulting company that delivers IT services and markets hardware and software products that in the main are developed by its research and development laboratori...
	Open Innovation for a Sustainable Environment World Wildlife Fund (WWF), New Zealand Open innovation has given NGOs and charities new ways to galvanize their large numbers of supporters. Through crowdsourcing competitions and other initiatives they can harness collective brainpower t...
	Open Innovation Contest Yields Ideas for the Greater Good World Bank Group/Wharton School of Business, United States Poverty is a global problem that is going to need a lot of very smart brains from all over the world to find solutions. Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 is one of the UN's 17 Sustai...
	Improving the Taxpayer Experience with the Crowd Internal Revenue Service (IRS), United States In 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States, launched its first ever Tax Design Challenge. This was a crowdsourcing contest to encourage breakthrough ideas to improve the taxpayer...
	Shaping the Future of Plastics with Open Innovation Perstorp, Sweden To celebrate the 40th anniversary of its Capa™ caprolactone thermoplastic materials, specialty chemicals company Perstorp launched a global open innovation challenge. The purpose was to generate new...
	Philips Finds New Cooking Product Via Open Innovation Philips, Netherlands Product managers don't always have to rely on internal R&D to come up with new products. Open innovation is becoming a standard approach for many companies as they look to external sources for new id...
	The World’s First Crowdsourced Singing Voice Tele2, Sweden Whether for fun, to create new designs, logos and flavors or to come up with groundbreaking products and innovations, crowdsourcing has found success in many arenas. Initiatives demonstrate how diver...
	Open Innovation Boost for Banking Apps BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), Spain Multinational Spanish banking group BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) is so convinced by the potential of big data that from time to time it enlists the crowd to help it discover revolutionary ne...
	Big Data Contest Generates Big Ideas Splunk Inc., United States The amount of big data in the world is growing exponentially and with it comes a wealth of opportunities to use information in novel ways. Open innovation is one of the means by which companies an...
	Open Innovation Partnership Leads to Novel Packaging Solution Segers and Balcaen, Belgium Many companies are faced with tough conditions in their markets: a volatile economic climate, the emergence of new players selling cheaper products and services, new regulations and so on. They all c...
	Urban Issues Solved by Big Data Challenges UN Global Pulse, South Korea In this day and age, where so much information can be gleaned from both structured and unstructured digital data, we are increasingly seeing problems solved by open innovation approaches, such as big ...
	Open Innovation Search for Medical App Innovations Medica, France Crowdsourcing app contests are a good way for developers and innovators to get exposure for their work and for companies and organisations to solve problems and/or create new products. They can yield...
	Mission Accomplished: Crowdsourcing Contest Beams Up New Spacecraft National Space Society, United States The National Space Society started another space race when it launched its <a href="http://www.enterpriseinspace.org/winner/" target=_blank>Enterprise in Space</a> (EIS) crowdsourcing competition to t...
	Open Innovation Boost to Start-Ups in Africa Orange, France In Africa as in many other parts of the world, the start-up and entrepreneurial community is thriving and alive with novel ideas. However, getting concepts to market is hardly ever a straightforward a...
	Innovating the Future of TV with the Crowd AppLovin Corporation, United States The popularity of apps is down to a number of factors, such as their utility, low prices and range of software programs on offer. There appears to be an app for just about everything, from monitoring...
	Crowdsource Contest Winner Could Transform How Heart Disease is Diagnosed National Institutes of Health, United States According to the World health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one cause of death around the world. In the U.S. alone, 1,500 people are diagnosed with heart failure e...
	Novel Blood Test Wins Open Innovation Challenge in India GE India Technology Center, India The <a href="http://www.ge.com/in/edisonchallenge" target=_blank>GE Edison Challenge</a> is an open innovation contest for university students in India, organized by the GE India Technology Center (GE...
	Crowdsourcing Transit Apps for an Improved Travel Experience New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), United States With advancements in digital technology, everybody is now free to help companies and organizations to innovate. Vast reams of their data that might otherwise lie dormant can be used as the basis for ...
	Crowdsourcing Campaign Yields Innovative Building Technologies Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States The Problem It has been estimated that buildings are responsible for more than 40 percent of global energy use. Therefore, making them more energy efficient can be a significant contribution to ta...
	Healthcare Innovation Challenge Selects Innovative Walking Cane Rite Aid, United States Nobody knows where the next medical and healthcare innovation will come from: could it be dreamed up by R&D departments, created in laboratories or designed in somebody's shed? One way to access pote...
	Open Innovation Search for Cutting-Edge Counter Terrorism Technologies Novel audio intelligence technology wins open innovation contest for solutions to combat terrorism., United States Terrorism is a complex and constantly evolving threat as those who seek to do harm develop more sophisticated modes of attack. In this ever-changing environment, the tools and approaches to detect, p...
	Arla’s Open Innovation Challenge for New Ways to Drive the Future of Dairy Arla, Denmark In recent years, farmer owned global dairy company Arla has been integrating open innovation into a number of it processes to help it create the future of dairy. One such initiative is the Arla Food I...
	Open Innovation Challenge to Reduce Water Use in Oil Production GE and Statoil, Norway Concerned that water management is one of the greatest challenges facing the onshore oil and gas industry, GE and Norwegian multinational Statoil launched an open innovation challenge contest for solu...
	Crowdsourcing Brilliant Student App Ideas Google, United States The Google Admob Student App Challenge is a crowdsourcing contest organized by Google for great app ideas. It is open to students all over the world, and bills itself as "not your average app building...
	Crowdsourcing Challenge to Commercialize Medical Inventions National Institutes of Health, United States In August 2014, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA launched a crowdsourcing competition in which they didn't want a single idea to be submitted. That's because they already had lots o...
	Mystery Star Found by Crowdsourcing Project Zooniverse, United Kingdom While brilliant scientific research is carried out by scientists in labs all over the world, it is not the only way that wonderful new discoveries are made. Increasingly, citizen scientists are addin...
	Crowdsourcing Success in Boston City of Boston, United States The city of Boston has embraced crowdsourcing and open innovation, having organized numerous contests and initiatives in recent years. In February 2014, the mayor put out a call to residents to hel...
	Cider Maker Crowdsources Apples from the Public Thistly Cross, United Kingdom Every year Scottish cider maker Thistly Cross launches an unusual crowdsourcing exercise urging the public to give them any surplus apples they might have. The drink’s increasing popularity means t...
	How Facebook Crowdsources Internal Innovation Facebook, United States No one person in a large, complex organisation has all the ideas and answers. Crowdsourcing innovation from employee get-togethers and online communities can be an efficient way to turn light-bulb mo...
	Carlsberg’s Crowdsourcing Contest for Green Beer Solutions Carlsberg, Denmark When Carlsberg was looking for new ideas to make its beer more sustainable it turned to the general public across the world. The Danish brewing company launched its “Cheers to Green Ideas” crowdso...
	Crowdsourcing Project to Design New Museum Exhibition Chicago History Museum, United States Crowdsourcing design and creation contests have long been deployed by consumer facing companies to come up with new iterations of products and fresh flavors, and to uncover more about consumer needs. ...
	"Innovation Challenges:" Do They Matter? Scripps Innovation Challenge, United States Colleges, corporations, and foundations are pumping serious money into "innovation challenges," enlisting the very young to discover the next big thing. Here's how it works. Teams tackle a challe...
	Crowdsourcing Valuable Consumer Insights for Car Financial Services Mercedes-Benz Financial Services , United States There are many reasons why calling the crowd is a good idea. Among them are insights into possible future trends and design concepts. Looking outside your immediate environment can provide fresh ins...
	Apps in Space Crowdsourcing Challenge NASA, United States For many years now NASA has been reaching out to the crowd to help it come up with innovative designs and technologies. The space agency recognizes the power of engaging an interested group of people...
	Unilever’s Global Crowdsourcing Quest to Solve Sustainability Challenges Unilever, Netherlands In June 2015, Unilever's Foundry platform launched a global crowdsourcing community to find new and innovative ways of tackling sustainability problems. Foundry IDEAS will provide a platform for cons...
	Crowdsourcing to Improve Rare Disease Research Rare Genomics Institute, United States Rare diseases affect 300 million people across the world, yet less than five percent of the 7,000 known rare diseases have approved treatments. That’s according to the Rare Genomics Institute (RGI),...
	Brand Boosting Success with Crowdsourcing BA Holidays, United Kingdom British Airways lays claim to be one of the first travel brands to crowdsource ideas with customers and the general public. In 2011, the airline asked the crowd to help it design and choose new men...
	Novel Solar Panel Technology Wins Crowdsourcing Contest SunSaluter, United States Climate change is one of the trickiest problems facing the planet and requires lots of solutions. Through the internet and crowdsourcing, tapping the wisdom of the masses for possible answers is easy...
	How the Crowd is Giving Formula One Technology a Boost Formula One/Tata Communicatations, India Formula 1 is the world's premier motor sport for the skill and bravery of its drivers and the brilliance of its technology. In recent years, the motor sport has been engaging fans and other members o...
	Crowdsourcing Contest to Discover Clinical Trial Innovations Bonnie J. Addorio Lung Cancer Foundation/Free to Breathe , United States Cancer is one of the world's biggest killers and consequently the focus of a colossal amount of research activity. Clinical trials are the best way to discover what is the best kind of treatment for ...
	Car Mechanic Invents Device to Ease Difficult Childbirths Odon Device, Argentina Prolonged second stage labor can cause a host of complications for mother and child, including maternal hemorrhaging and fetal asphyxiation. Delivery options in these situations include a caesarean s...
	Open Innovation Call to Tackle a Big Killer Department of Health and Human Services/deBeaumont Foundation, United States In many of the world's developed countries, people are fat and getting fatter. Rich western diets and a couch potato lifestyle conspire to create shirt button-popping girths. Despite many public hea...
	Crowdsourcing Charles Darwin’s Experiment on Emotion Darwin Correspondence Project, United Kingdom In addition to his revolutionary work on evolution, Charles Darwin also busied himself with research in numerous other fields. One of his lesser-known experiments was on emotion. The great 19th-centu...
	Crowdsourcing Discussions in the UK Parliament The Labour Party, United Kingdom Every Wednesday at noon when the UK parliament is in session, the prime minister of the day takes questions from members of the House of Commons. This constitutional convention is known as Prime Mini...
	Open Innovation versus Nuisance Robot Calls Federal Trade Commission, United States It doesn't matter how much they anger and frustrate, the robocalls still keep coming. These are the automated phone calls that consumers and homeowners find intrusive and a nuisance. Sometimes they a...
	Crowdsourcing Better Disaster Preparation Solutions Solution Search, United States In 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the United States with devastating effects. Nearly 2,000 people were killed and more than 300,000 homes were destroyed. As well as being one of the deadliest hu...
	How Crowdsourcing is Helping Blind People to See Be My Eyes, Denmark The crowd is helping to make life easier for visually impaired people through a neat non-profit app called <a href="http://www.bemyeyes.org/" target=_blank>Be My Eyes</a>. The software program pairs ...
	Creating New Wines with the Crowd Columbia Crest/La Crema Winery, United States Crowdsourcing has been used to create new flavors and recipes for crisps, cakes, ice creams and beer among other food and drink items. Added to that list in 2014 was wine. With the rise of open inno...
	Crowdsourcing Libary Tool Challenges London Residents to Make Decisions London Borough of Lambeth/White October, United Kingdom Crowdsourcing initiatives are allowing members of the public to have more of a say in matters affecting their communities. Through contests, games, votes and web portals, they can directly influence ...
	Crowdsourced Experimentation with the British Library’s Collections The British Library, United Kingdom In large and small public and private bodies all over the world, reams of data are created on a continual basis, used and then stored away in digital archives, sometimes never seeing the light of day ...
	Open Innovation Search for a Green Pump for India Greenpeace, India The increasing success of open innovation in many firms has led to the adoption of its principles by some non-profit organisations as a way to solve pressing problems. Emphasizing the use of externa...
	Tapping the World’s Smarts for a Novel Shoe Design Quicksilver, Inc, United States The demand for new products, designs and fashions is insatiable as hungry consumers crave novelty. Companies realize they have to keep their product pipeline full and pumping out new items, less thei...
	Crowdsourcing and Bug Bounties Bolster Online Security United Airlines, United States Software security is a huge issue for many organizations. They are engaged in an evolutionary arms race with cyber criminals. As security systems increase in their levels of complexity and sophistic...
	Open Innovation Boost to Space Research and Global Issues NASA, United States Every year, NASA and several other space agencies enlist the help of the crowd in a mass collaboration event to produce open-source solutions for future space missions. The initiative also hopes to s...
	Innovative Banking Idea Courtesy of the Crowd BankMobile, United States Consumers can be a fabulous source of ideas and creative thinking as companies far too numerous to mention have discovered. One of them is BankMobile, a division of Customers Bank. The financial ins...
	19th-Century Contests for Ideas to Prevent Premature Burial Various, France During the 18th and 19th centuries, many people were scared to death of being buried alive, namely by being pronounced dead and put six feet under when they were actually in a coma. So widespread wer...
	Crowdsourcing New Chocolate Treats Nestlé , Switzerland Open innovation comes in many forms, offering enterprises and organizations myriad ways of tapping the intellectual smarts of the crowd. For example, there is technology scouting, R&D problem solving...
	Children Trying to Make the Impossible Possible X Prize Foundation, United States The X Prize Foundation has given us some of the most thrilling innovation contests of recent times, leading to groundbreaking inventions in numerous fields, such as spaceflight, lunar research and oil...
	Google Taps the Crowd for Novel Browser Extensions Google, United States Time and again crowdsourcing has been used to solve problems, generate bold new thinking and deliver novel products. Part of its success comes from the diverse backgrounds of solvers, who are sometim...
	Chocolate Bar Inspiration with the Crowd Nestlé , Switzerland The volume of ideation contests is one illustration of the increasing popularity of open innovation. Companies are turning to crowds for a number of reasons, not only to come up with product innovatio...
	Driving Innovation Forward with Crowdsourcing Midtown Alliance, Atlanta and others, United States The city of Atlanta, Georgia was on the hunt for novel designs to revitalize two of its bridges. To access a diverse talent pool and to find greater levels of inspiration, it decided to reach out to ...
	Children Imagine the Cars of the Future Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan Einstein was always ready with a snappy and sometimes profound quote to get us all thinking. Talking about ideas and creativity he once said, "To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike i...
	Crowdsourcing Inspiration from the Sole Fluevog, Canada John Fluevog Shoes doesn't just rely on its designers and founder John Fluevog to come up with exciting new creations. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company also welcomes contributions from t...
	Brilliant Minds Solve GE Aviation Open Innovation Challenges General Electric, United States No stranger to open innovation to solve technical problems, the General Electric Company (GE) launched two aviation innovation challenges in early 2015. The global company sought solutions that would...
	Streamlining Drug Discovery through Open Innovation Merck & Co., United States Bringing a new drug to market is a long, costly and expensive. The traditional industry approaches involve testing hundreds of thousands of compounds against potential disease mechanisms. Despite th...
	How the Crowd is Helping to Combat the Ebola Threat United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United States The Ebola outbreak in West Africa first made the news headlines in March 2014. It spread rapidly and within a few months had killed many more people than previous outbreaks of the viral hemorrhagic f...
	Visionary Ideas to Change the World Verizon, United States Broadband and telecommunications company Verizon created a $10 million challenge for smart brains to come up with ground breaking concepts in the healthcare, education, transportation and sustainabili...
	Top Marks for School Report Card Open Innovation Contest The Foundation for Excellence in Education, United States Crowdsourcing is nothing new. Humankind has been pooling its brainpower ever since we first rubbed sticks together to create fire. What has changed in recent years is that the internet has provided ...
	Digging Deeper into History by Crowdsourcing Britain’s Bronze Age Past The British Museum, United Kingdom The handwritten index cards were once state of the art when curators at the British Museum were cataloging their collections in the early 19th century. But in today’s globally connected digital wor...
	Kiss My App Contest for Healthcare Innovations William Osler Health System, Canada The amusingly titled "Kiss My App" contest is a crowdsourcing initiative organized by the William Osler Health System, a large community hospital in Ontario. The student only crowdsourcing contest i...
	Wake Up and Smell the Crowdsourced Coffee Grinder Hand Ground, United States For many people, coffee is a delicious and stimulating start to the day, but there is a continual gripe of lovers of specialty coffees. Namely, the difficulty of achieving a consistent grind to unlea...
	Huggies Diapers Nurture Crowd Innovations Kimberly-Clark, United States Nearly 70 years ago, the disposable diaper was invented by Marion O'Brien, who was dissatisfied with the options available at the time to keep her baby dry. So she invented a product that is now sold...
	Freezeway Skate Route Through Edmonton for Commuters The Center for Outdoor Living Design, Canada Competitions can be key drivers of innovation, as individuals and teams work for concentrated periods of time to solve a problem. From timepieces and space rockets to architecture and cyber security,...
	Crowdsourcing the Work of a Great British Social Reformer University College London, United Kingdom There are many reasons why people knuckle down to get involved in open innovation challenges. For example, there is intellectual stimulation, possible financial reward, the chance to be part of someth...
	Crowdsourcing and Improving Cancer Care The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the National Cancer Institute, United States For obvious reasons, we all have a vested interest in healthcare innovations, and one of the many benefits of open innovation is that it has created opportunities for the crowd to contribute. Brillia...
	The Future of Chocolate in a Digital World The Hershey Company, United States Open innovation is not just about getting solutions to your immediate problems and creating new product innovations. Companies can also brainstorm the crowd to try and work out where their industry i...
	Revolutionary Voice Recognition Software Wins Philips Open Innovation Contest Philips , United States According to research conducted by Philips North America, nearly two-thirds of North Americans consider themselves innovators, with many of them thinking they have dreamed up the 'next big thing'. Wa...
	Students Get into the Open Innovation Habit Verizon Communications, United States Crowdsourcing and collaboration offer huge potential for innovation and solving challenges efficiently and cost-effectively. Today, these are practices that some people are learning while young. T...
	Pasta Company Serves Novel Open Innovation Contest Barilla, Italy Crowdsourcing and open innovation have given us a number of food and flavor contests, where brands have reached out to their consumers for new varieties and concepts. Not only do these competitions d...
	Open Innovation Solutions to Get the World Moving Ford Motor Company, United States Whether we’re talking about high fuel costs, congested freeways or polluted cities, there are clearly many transport issues across the globe. Ford Motor Company believes that as our world becomes...
	Crowdsourcing Contest Leads to a Global Soccer Anthem Sony Corporation, Japan Disruptive innovations have fundamentally changed the way music is bought, packaged, sold and consumed in recent years. One of the big transformations that is taking place right now, thanks to the in...
	Formula 1 Stays at the Cutting Edge with Crowdsourcing Formula 1, United Kingdom Formula 1 is one of the most technologically advanced sports on the planet, and to stay that way it must always be at the cutting edge. To catalyse the development of the next generation of communica...
	Crowdsourcing Contest to Shape a Better Future The Coca-Cola Company, United States The Coca-Cola Company has long been a supporter of crowdsourcing and open innovation, for example, working with online communities to generate new marketing ideas and content. The soft drinks behemoth...
	Open Innovation Community Create Novel Products FirstBuild, United States When super smart and creative people work together on challenges and projects, the results can be phenomenal. FirstBuild is an open innovation success story that is going from strength to strength, wh...
	Open Innovation Advances the Prediction and Detection of Epileptic Seizures National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) , United States Tens of millions of people around the world are affected by epilepsy, a disorder caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Although therapeutic interventions can do much to alleviate the c...
	Crowdsourcing Changes in Healthcare Target, United States Thanks to the ubiquity of the internet and the speed of modern communications, crowdsourcing contests have become a popular strategy to engage smart brains to invent new products and solve challenges....
	Innovation and Creativity Shine at Vodaphone’s App Star Challenge Vodaphone, Kenya Open innovation and crowdsourcing challenges provide problem solvers with numerous opportunities. Whether or not they win, their talents are given exposure to a wider audience they might not otherwis...
	Crowdsourcing a New Beer Beverage with Budweiser Anheuser-Busch InBev, United States Using crowdsourcing to find new flavors is a popular approach among food and beverage companies. In recent years, we've seen new potato chip, ice cream and pizza flavors and that's just for starters....
	Crowdsourced Solutions to Protect the Planet Climate CoLab, United States The Climate CoLab, a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) runs a series of open innovation contests to find solutions for numerous challenges presented by our planet's changing c...
	Music Star Crowdsources Song Inspiration ReThink Housing, United States Crowdsourcing pop songs has been a mini trend running through the music industry. In recent years, we've seen Coca-Cola and American Idol crowdsourcing a song for Carly Rae Jepsen and the Swedish DJ ...
	Solving Crop Problems by Leveraging the Crowd PlantVillage, United States Crowdsourced science projects that involve citizen scientists, academics and other knowledgeable experts have made significant contributions to numerous fields. They include astronomy, ecology and AI...
	The Crowd Strikes Back with another Movie Classic Star Wars Uncut, United States The crowd has once again revealed its ultra-creative side by remaking a shot-for-shot version of "The Empire Strikes Back", the second movie in the original Star Wars trilogy. The crowdsourced cut wa...
	Open Innovation Defies Physics to Give Aerodynamics a Lift BAE Systems, United Kingdom According to news reports, an open innovation collaboration between scientists has resulted in an innovation that has ‘defied the laws of physics’. Researchers from BAE Systems and Queen Mary’s...
	Crowdsourcing Apps to Improve City Life BigApps NYC, United States Data sharing and collaboration enables and accelerates knowledge creation. There is innovation gold hidden away in data that can be rooted out if brilliant minds are allowed to get to work. BigAp...
	Open Innovation and a Tough Political Decision Institute of Economic Affairs , United Kingdom One of the most fascinating innovations in open innovation is how the paradigm is being used to engage citizens in political processes, giving them more of a say in how their neighborhoods, cities and...
	Crowdsourcing Breakthrough Cognitive Technology Solutions IBM, United States So, let’s say you are a successful multinational technology and consulting corporation that has developed a new technology that you believe can radically transform how consumers and businesses inter...
	Open Innovation and the World’s First Ever 3D Printed Car Design Local Motors, United States Local Motors is successfully driving forward a change in how cars are designed by running competitions to find innovations. It is a process that appears to be working with novel designs coming off th...
	Improving City Life with Crowdsourcing Apps Contest New Cities Foundation, France Tightly focused contests with a narrow scope and a clear set of guidelines can be a boon to organizations and companies that operate them. With clear objectives in mind, innovators can concentrate t...
	Crowdsourcing Solutions to Global Problems with NASA NASA, United States The space agency NASA has long been a fan of open collaboration and of working with the crowd to solve some of the many technical hurdles it faces in pioneering the frontiers of space. By bringing a ...
	Turning to the Crowd for the Next Big Jewish Idea The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, United States In 2011 the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles embarked on an open innovation search for a big idea that could help mobilize the Jewish community. So, the <a href="http://www.thenextbigjewishidea.com/" ...
	Air France’s Open Innovation Approach Takes Off Air France, France Despite the many advantages of tapping into the brain power of the crowd, some enterprises experience nothing but frustration. They throw out a challenge and receive a tidal wave of solutions from eve...
	Fresh Banking Ideas Sought from the Crowd Westpac, New Zealand Crowdsourcing with consumers comes with numerous benefits: increased innovation capacity, a flow of new ideas, reduced innovation risk and accelerated time to market with new products and services to ...
	Crowdsourcing Competitions to Find Solutions to Robocalls Misery Federal Trade Commission , United States Technology marches on at breakneck speeds with the promise of making our lives easier and better. However, technology can also be a pain in the neck. It is technology that we have to blame for roboc...
	New York Hotel Designed by the Crowd Prodigy Network, United States One of the boons of open innovation contests is that by setting ambitious goals, participants raise their game to find solutions. We have seen it time and again in historic competitions such as the L...
	How Open Innovation Helped to Create a Billion Dollar Brand Procter and Gamble, United States Febreze is a brand of odor eliminator that started out as a fabric refresher and has since become a multi-product success story, branching out into such categories as plug-in oils, odor eliminating ca...
	How the Crowd is Exploring the Moon Zooniverse, United Kingdom The last time humans set foot on the moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17, the final mission of the Apollo lunar landing program. Since astronaut Eugene Cernan climbed back into the lunar module Challenge...
	Open Innovation Boost for the Future of Education Microsoft, United States The power of the crowd can achieve great things when smart brains come together to work on ways to bring about meaningful changes in society. Their ideas, once put into action can make a terrific imp...
	Wine Region Elicits Crowd Help for Architectural Project Mendoza Art District, Argentina The Province of Mendoza, Argentina, in South America is the center of the world-renowned Argentinian wine industry, a desert region with an artificial irrigation system that supports mile after mile o...
	Next Generation Medical Innovation Via Open Innovation United States Army, United States No one organisation, company or outfit has the monopoly on great ideas, a fact recognized by an ever increasing number of public and private sector outfits that are turning to the crowd for inspiratio...
	Crowdsourcing Historic Ships to Improve Climate Modelling Zooniverse, United Kingdom “Many hands make light work”, the old saying goes. Today’s open innovation and crowdsourcing initiatives demonstrate how this is so. They utilize the smarts of the crowd to solve problems and br...
	Harnessing the Crowd to End Climate Change The MIT Climate CoLab , United States When smart people from diverse backgrounds get together and pool their intellectual resources, the results can be truly phenomenal. Free from corporate or university constraints they can work indepen...
	Open Innovation Solutions for Mental Health Problems in the Developing World Scientists Without Borders, United States The power of the crowd and open innovation may well be helping businesses solve their problems, innovate and develop new products, but the benefits don’t end there. Soliciting the contribution of d...
	Open Innovation to Future-Proof a Business Model Valora, Switzerland In looking ahead to the future, Swiss-based company Valora realized that one of its business wings could soon run into trouble. The company operates the majority of kiosks (called “k kiosks” in S...
	New Product Lines with Open Innovation AkzoNobel, Netherlands AkzoNobel, is a Dutch multinational that creates decorative paints, performance coatings and specialty chemicals. For a number of years it has been very active in the open innovation space looking fo...
	Working with the Crowd to Solve Civic Issues The City of San Francisco, United States Open innovation is providing communities in numerous countries with the means to start to affect change in their localities. Not only as a way to report civic problems but also to ideate, design, dev...
	Open Innovation Achieves when Traditional Procurement Fails to Deliver United States Department of Veterans Affairs, United Kingdom In January 2014, the U.S. General Services Administration’s Chellenge.gov open innovation portal was recognized for the leading part it is playing in innovation. The website beat 600 applicants to ...
	Reducing Flight Fuel Costs with Open Innovation General Electric (GE), United States Idea contests are a popular form of open innovation that capture the imagination of brilliant minds and focus the attention on speeding up innovation outcomes. General Electric (GE) is a prominent ...
	General Mills Develops Two New Food Products with Open Innovation Partners General Mills, United States General Mills, one of the world’s largest food companies is no stranger to letting the outside in. Since 2007 when the global company launched the General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network (G-Win)...
	Crowdsourcing Competition for Breakthrough Clean Energy Solutions The MIT Clean Energy Prize , United States Enticed by the lure of valuable funding, exposure and the chance to network with key industry players, dozens of student groups submitted their clean energy solutions to a prestigious annual competiti...
	Crowdsourcing projects Transforms Old Library into an Arts Center Volunteers, United Kingdom Crowdsourcing has been embraced by a number of cities and communities around the world as a way of funding or developing local projects, to solve issues and incorporate citizens more in the decisions ...
	Financial Institution Banks on Crowdsourcing Success Sberbank, Russia Sberbank is the largest bank in Russia and one of the biggest in Europe. Since 2009 this huge financial institution has been using crowdsourcing methodologies to innovate products and services and ga...
	Global Open Innovation Contest for City Landmark City Planning Department, Helsinki, Finland Helsinki’s South Harbor area is an important gateway to the city and country. It’s the largest passenger harbor in Finland and an area that’s very close to the center of Helsinki, “an essenti...
	X PRIZE Contest Finds Breakthrough Oil Cleanup Technology Elastec, United States An innovation competition is a tried and tested way of providing new concepts for a company’s product pipeline or to solve technical challenges, with contests ranging from the relatively easy to see...
	The Force is Strong with this Crowdsourcing Contest Pringles/Star Wars, United States When you have access to a source of creative external brainpower what do you do with it? Many companies have embraced open innovation and crowdsourcing to create new products, refine existing ones or...
	Open Innovation Partnership Leads to Breakthrough Laundry Product Procter and Gamble/MonoSol, United States Procter and Gamble is one of the world’s biggest and most successful consumer products companies. In recent years it has been widely lauded for its Connect and Develop program. This is an open inn...
	Crowdsourcing Quests for Better Hospitals and More Efficient Flying General Electric (GE), United States Instead of hiring a crack team of researchers to improve upon or develop new algorithms, some companies are turning to the crowd and setting up prize-based competitions instead. One of the most famou...
	Innovative Saline Bag Wins Open Innovation Contest for its Life-Saving Potential Fosmo Med Inc., United States Nobody knows when and where the next brilliant idea is going to come from - the product that will make our lives easier and disrupt a market, or the solution to a technical challenge that's holding a ...
	Open Innovation and the Future of Rocket Design DIYRockets, United States Venturing out into space whether through unmanned probes or aboard rockets and shuttles is no longer the preserve of large government institutions. The final frontier is the new frontier as numerous ...
	Heineken’s Global Search for Beer Concepts for Senior Citizens Heineken, Netherlands To gather fresh product ideas and widen the pool of creative inputs to its innovation efforts, Dutch brewing group Heineken created <a href="https://www.ideasbrewery.com/AgeGate/" target=_blank>Ideas ...
	Colourful Crowdsourcing Solution to Breast Cancer Challenges The DREAM Project, United States From studying the fundamental causes of diseases to tracking the spread of epidemics and searching for planets outside our solar system, open innovation is help to provide key scientific insights. ...
	Open Innovation Call for Healthy Ageing Concepts Mayo Clinic, United States Sadly for us mere mortals there’s no such thing as an elixir of immortality, but that doesn't stop people from looking for solutions to keep us healthy and active for as long as possible. In 2013...
	Open Innovation Energy Contest Yields Breakthrough Ideas U.S. Energy Department , United States With the energy and utility bills changing wildly over the years - usually going in the upwards direction rather than downwards - and concerns about the health of the planet, there has never been a gr...
	New York’s Open Innovation Search for Big Ideas New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), United States “Entrepreneurs are the pioneers, the visionaries, the game changers that drive innovation and create new and exciting businesses that sustain the vibrancy of any city,” said Seth. W. Pinsky, Presi...
	Student Crowdsourcing Project Delivers World-Changing Ideas Dell/University of Texas at Austin, United States Using the principles of crowdsourcing, numerous organizations are encouraging social innovators to work together on their big ideas to change the world. Ever since 2007, the Dell Social Innovation ...
	Open Innovation Challenge Yields Novel E-Waste Management Solutions OpenIDEO People love gadgets. When new smartphones, iPad and laptop incarnations hit the shops, shelves are emptied within hours. But happy and content consumers leads to problems as old electronics are disca...
	Creative Children and their Dream Machines MyMachine, Belgium Children are often creating, dreaming and imagining. Theirs is a world of endless possibilities, but rarely do they get an opportunity to turn their wildest dreams into reality. Until now that is, a...
	The Power and Potential of People-Centered Innovation European Commission, Belgium When problems beset society, the clamour for solutions is loud and prolonged. Explanations and resolutions are demanded from politicians and public institutions, yet there is often dissatisfaction wit...
	Breakthrough Open Innovation with Internal Teams Bupa, United Kingdom Open innovation is not only about bringing the outside in. The paradigm is also a means of engaging those on the inside. Leveraging the creativity and smarts of employees is an effective way for fir...
	Crowdsourcing Global Development Goals The United Nations The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were established following the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit. They have galvanized global attention and ...
	Open Innovation Gives Lifetime Brands a $50 Million Boost Lifetime Brands, United States Lifetime Brands, a North American company that designs, develops and markets a range of branded kitchenware, home and lifestyle products regularly seeks outside innovation. It recognizes there are lo...
	Open Innovation Collaboration Leads to an Eco-Friendly Paints Range AkzoNobel, Netherlands Open innovation comes in many forms from crowdsourcing design and product naming contests to tech scouting, partnerships, technical problem solving challenges and more. The use of diverse, external ...
	Facebook Games Fights Killer Fungus Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), United Kingdom When it comes to biological emergencies scientists need all the help they can get. Faced with a potential epidemic, the need for answers and strategies is crucial, yet sometimes the snail-like pace t...
	The Creativity of the Crowd Gives Canada a Boost Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC), Canada One of the many things that crowdsourcing has going for it is the ability to fire up the passion of an interested group and galvanize people to get creative for a common goal. Marketers have cottoned...
	Open Innovation and Publishing's New Chapter Unbound Publishing, United Kingdom Open innovation is helping to change the landscape within numerous industries, from medicine to mechanical engineering, aviation to agriculture. It’s also causing some ripples in the publishing wor...
	Domino’s Pizza Cooks Up Delivery Vehicle Open Innovation Contest Domino's Pizza, United States Domino’s Pizza has a reputation for innovating pizza delivery services. It came up with the Heatwave Bag (heated bag to deliver oven-fresh pizzas) and the corrugated pizza box among other innovatio...
	Crowdsourcing and Colonoscopies: The Benefits of Distributed Knowledge for Cancer Diagnosis National Institutes of Health, United States In many industries computers and software programs do some of the heavy lifting and enhance the capabilities of workers. Medicine is just one of many areas to have benefited from smart technologies. ...
	Open Innovation and the Power of Health Data Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Engineering, United States The world is swimming with data - long reams of statistics, charts, graphs, and analyses. More of it is available to the general public than ever before as government institutions and organisations ...
	Crowdsourcing to Engage the Electorate Kevin Rudd/DesignCrowd, Australia To win elections politicians need recognition and votes. It’s a simple enough formula. But how do you engage and reach parts of the electorate that might otherwise not know you exist or care little...
	Crowdsourcing the Education Needs of the World Education for All, France In 2012 UNESCO teamed up with mobile phone company Nokia and nonprofit organization Pearson Foundation to launch the eight month long 'Education for All (EFA) Crowdsourcing Challenge'. The aim was ...
	Crowdsourcing to Save Lives Penn Medicine, United States Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are portable electronic devices that can save lives by jump starting a heart in cardiac arrest and returning it to its normal rhythm. In the United States, as...
	Open Innovation Accelerates Green Giant Product Innovation General Mills, United States The innovation landscape has changed. There are fewer companies today that think they can go it alone or that they have a monopoly on ideas and solutions. Open innovation is moving from the margin t...
	Crowdsourcing to Create a Disruptive Approach to Building Military Vehicles DARPA, United States In 2010 the US Department of Defense and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a major program to crowdsource the next generation of infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) through a ...
	Co-Creating with Consumers Puts a Sparkle in a Soft Drinks Brand PepsiCo, United States Product naming, labeling and package designing competitions are all the rage and a fun way for consumer-facing companies to engage their customers and attract some new ones. The rules are simple, par...
	Crowdsourcing the Recruitment Process Code Together, United States Crowdsourcing can be an effective recruitment tool that draws the brightest and most able people. By posting competitions to assorted groups companies can see who is coming up with the most intellige...
	Crowdsourcing at the Bottom of the Sea NEPTUNE Canada/University of Victoria, Canada Thanks to the power of the Internet hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens all over the world are helping scientists with their research endeavors. There are many citizen science initiatives cove...
	Open Innovation Cooks up New Frozen Vegetables Line General Mills and Burley Foods, United States General Mills is one of the leading practitioners of open innovation, a multinational corporation that has worked with innovators beyond its walls for a number of years. Its primary focus is on food ...
	Open Innovation to Unclog Cairo’s Roads The Cairo Transport App Challenge, Egypt The Cairo metropolitan area like those of so many other busy cities across the world experiences daily problems with congestion. It increases travel time, has adverse affects on air quality and publi...
	Crowdsourcing Discoveries in Deep Space Galaxy Zoo, United States From tracking comets and studying galaxies to designing drug molecules and searching for extraterrestrial life, members of the public are increasingly getting involved in scientific research. Cit...
	Crowdsourcing Potato Chip Flavors Boosts Sales Simba, South Africa Crowdsourcing contests are smart PR tools in addition to being valuable means of innovating. They have been enthusiastically embraced by some customer-facing companies as a way to market their brand...
	Novel Apps to Boost Fuel Economy US Government, United States In countries across the world, local, regional and national governments continue to release their data to empower citizens, improve public services, and spur innovation and economic growth. Data-sets ...
	Hackathon to Create Autism Apps AT&T/Autism Speaks, United States Hackathons are about getting things done. They are open innovation events where short bursts of intense activity by diverse groups of people tackle challenges and innovate. There are hackathons ...
	Global Community of Scientists Tackles Fungal Invasion John Innes Center/Sainsbury Laboratory, United Kingdom Ash dieback is a fungal disease that can wipe out whole woods of ash trees. It is caused by an aggressive pathogen known as Chalara fraxinea that first emerged in Poland in the 1990s and has swept ac...
	Schools Get Creative with Crowdsourced Sneaker Competition Vans, United States The Vans Custom Culture Contest is a crowdsourcing competition for high school students in the USA. It encourages them to give vent to their creative passions by coming up with original designs for s...
	International DJ Crowdsources a Pop Song Avicii, Sweden Lennon and McCartney, Goffin and King, Simon and Garfunkel, the pop landscape is littered with successful musical collaborations. So how about a new one - the world and DJ Avicii? The Swedish house...
	Novel Concepts at the Philips Innovation Open Contest Philips, Netherlands Consumer electronics behemoth Philips has long understood that great ideas can come from anywhere, not just company employees. It is the driving thought behind ‘Simply Innovate’ the open innovati...
	Flying High with Open Innovation and the Future of Hand Luggage Lufthansa, Germany German airline company Lufthansa frequently reaches out to the crowd for innovative ideas to enhance its passenger and freight services. It has long valued co-creation with consumers as a way to deve...
	Open Innovation to Help Prevent Mass Atrocities USAID and Humanity United, United States <a href="http://thetechchallenge.org" target=_blank>The Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention</a> is a global open innovation initiative that is seeking novel technology-based solutions to deal with ...
	Open Innovation Contest Seeks Novel Bike Designs for Africa Cycling out of Poverty, Netherlands The Wiki-Bike African Design contest was an open innovation project to create sustainable bicycle designs made from environmentally friendly and locally sourced materials. The principle aim was to su...
	Philips Wins $10 Million Prize for Energy Efficient Light Bulb of the Future Philips, Netherlands Competitions spur innovation like nothing else, a fact not lost on the US government when it launched a multi-million dollar contest for environmentally friendly light bulbs. The L-Prize, also know...
	Crowdsourcing Helps Tackle a Killer E. coli Outbreak Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Councils (BBSRC), United Kingdom E. coli (Escherichia coli) is a common bacterium that lives in the human gut. Most strains are harmless and some are beneficial, for example, by helping us to digest our food. Occasionally though th...
	Open Innovation Help for Future Mars Missions NASA, United States With the American space agency NASA feeling the financial pinch it has had to reformulate some of its planned exploration of Mars. Budget cuts meant a partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA)...
	Open Innovation Speeds Up Development of a General Mills Snack Product General Mills, United States "I think the emphasis on open innovation has really broadened the minds of a lot of the people in our technical organization and across the company," said Jeff Resch, senior scientist, General Mills. ...
	Jewelry Brand’s Co-Creation Initiative to Reach New Markets Tanishq, India Tanishq is one of India’s largest jewelry brands, primarily selling pieces to affluent women in the 40-plus age bracket. To help it reach out to a new audience of young working women it held an ope...
	Iceland Crowdsources its Constitution Iceland's Constitutional Council, Iceland Open innovation is founded on two fundamental precepts – that a problem has already been solved somewhere else in the world and that organisations can access expertise beyond their borders (smarter ...
	Walmart Hosts Open Innovation ‘Talent’ Contest for New Products Walmart, United States Space on a Walmart shelf is a rare and much sought after thing. Every year thousands of would-be vendors make countless pitches to the American multinational retail chain hoping to convince sales team...
	Crowd Revved Up by BMW Open Innovation Contest BMW, Germany The way that cars are made hasn’t changed for generations. Companies employ designers who dream up a few models, then people higher up the corporate food chain give the green light to those they fe...
	Lockheed Martin’s Open Innovation Search for Cool Ideas Lockheed Martin, United States The American global aerospace, defense and security company Lockheed Martin has a long tradition of breakthrough innovations in numerous fields. To mark its 100th anniversary in 2012 the defense cont...
	Crowdsourcing to Spot Future Trends and Help Mobile Phone Giant to Stay Relevant Nokia Corporation, Finland Staying ahead of the curve requires companies to envisage more than just what the future will look like. If they are involved in innovation they must foresee how they will design and define that futu...
	Chemical Company Uses Social Media to Boost Innovation Evonik Industries , Germany Social media can be a valuable resource for companies. It can be used to: 1) Test products and services to identify any weaknesses 2) Develop solutions to those problems 3) Come up with product...
	World-Beating Green Ideas to Help the Planet Postcode Lottery, Netherlands Since 2007, the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge has been providing an open innovation contest platform to encourage and help social entrepreneurs develop innovative and sustainable products and servi...
	Open Innovation Helps the Hunt for the Universe's Missing Material NASA , United States One of open innovation’s towering strengths is that it encourages people who normally focus on problems in specific fields to apply their techniques to solving challenges in completely different dis...
	Technological Solutions to Help Prevent Human Rights Abuses Amnesty International, United Kingdom The threats posed by international terrorism have led to countries all over the world beefing up their security to protect their citizens. In some places this has come at the cost of basic human righ...
	Audi Looks to the Future of Car Production Audi, Germany For the last decade open innovation has been helping an increasing number of companies to speed up their innovation processes and get more products to market in quicker time frames. But this valuabl...
	Open Innovation at the US Department of Health and Human Services US Department of Health and Human Services, United States The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) holds a series of open innovation contests for its employees that could provide a model for other organisations. In particular, those looking to i...
	Open Innovation Provides Sanitation Solutions in Ghana CleanTeam, Ghana The lack of proper sanitation in the home and in public areas is a serious health concern in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. Many households do not have their own toilets and the range of sani...
	Driving Innovation for Future Transport Needs Bombardier Transportation, Canada Bombardier Transportation was the first company in the rail industry to engage with open innovation when it launched a web-based contest in 2009 that invited people to share their ideas for the future...
	Fan Designed Football Kit Shows Business the Promise of Social Media Communities Olympique Marseille, France Online social media communities are playing an increasingly visible role in helping companies to ideate, innovate and solve problems. In addition, a loyal and engaged online consumer base can pay enor...
	Students Deliver World-Class Solutions in Global Innovation Challenge Innovation Challenge, United States Getting some of the best student minds in the world to work on pressing business and social innovation challenges is the intent of the annual Global Innovation Challenge. For more than ten years this...
	Novel Sustainable Living Solutions from the Dow Solar Design to Zero Competition Dow Chemical Company, United States A versatile, cost-effective, and elegant living space for residential and commercial occupancy, covered by solar panels and that can pay for itself in less than 14 years was the winner of the Dow Sola...
	Open Innovation Search for Innovate Diabetes Solutions Sanofi-Aventis US, United States To build on the success of its 2011 open innovation competition to look for innovative concepts to make life easier for people living with diabetes, Global healthcare provider Sanofi US once again tu...
	Boosting the Pace of Scientific Discovery with Open Innovation Boehringer Ingelheim , Germany In its search for a model to accurately predict the biological responses of molecules, pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim turned to an online science community to ask it to come up with an al...
	Sneaker Company Experiments with Filtering the Crowd Simple Shoes, United States Simple Shoes is a Santa Barbara sneaker company that in 2010 experimented with a crowdsourcing contest that challenged freelance creative professionals to outperform a creative agency. 'Simple Shoe...
	How Open Innovation Can Shake-Up Auditing and Accounting TeamMate, United States Yes, open innovation can accelerate the pace of innovation, design better products and services and provide access to good and perhaps even better ideas. But its potential isn't just confined to R&D a...
	Speech Therapy Apps Benefit from an Open Innovation Approach Smarty Ears, United States Smarty Ears is a developer of iPad apps for speech therapy and communication and uses open innovation to increase the number of ideas it gets to market and to accelerate the product development cycle....
	On the Road with the UK’s First Crowdsourced Car Citroen, France According to motor giant Citroen its C1 Connexion is the UK’s first crowdsourced car. Featuring the slogan ‘You like it, we make it’ the car company collaborated with Facebook on an app th...
	Crowdsourcing to Create Better Futures in Minnesota Minnesota Community Foundation, United States Inspired by the open innovation and crowdsourcing endeavors of others such as MyStarbucks.com and the X Prize Foundation, the Minnesota Community Foundation decided to get its own project underway to ...
	Lego Cuusoo: Innovating with the Crowd Lego, Denmark Lego is an open innovation pioneer, one of the first companies to develop practices and platforms to engage external contributors to innovation processes. Being open to the ideas of others has helped...
	Co-Creation with Children Brings New Product to Market Kellogg Company, United States Co-creation is the open innovation approach that is now the focus of increasing attention from the business community as companies seek to capitalize on the intelligence and creativity of their consum...
	Volvo Co-Creates an SUV with Consumers Volvo, Sweden When co-creating with the crowd a company needs to decide how involved it wants outsiders to be, whether they are going to help with a specific one-off challenge or maintain a continuous presence thro...
	Crowdsourcing Game Design Energises Consumers Putter King LLC, Japan The relationships between brands and their audiences are evolving as fans, followers and customers have the time, inclination and desire to become involved at a deeper level with their favourite compa...
	Co-Creating with Consumers Generates Wins for Kraft Foods Kraft Foods, United States The emergence of co-creation as a new form of open innovation engagement with consumers is a trend that is becoming hard to ignore. For product development, innovation and strategic thinking it can h...
	Going for Gold with Open Innovation DSM, Netherlands Multinational life sciences and materials sciences-based company DSM launched an open innovation contest in 2011 that invited creative thinkers and innovators to design a sporting innovation using the...
	The Crowd Remakes a Movie Classic Starwarsuncut.com, United States The evil Galactic Empire hasn’t seen anything like it. The force is with the crowd as Star Wars fans from all over the world have created a complete crowdsourced version of the 1977 sci-fi classic ...
	Crowdfunding Community Projects Spacehive, United Kingdom For cash strapped cities suffering from ever shrinking budgets, the crowds and their pockets are coming to the rescue. In an age of austerity, urban loving and enterprising individuals are employing...
	Philips Reaps the Benefits of Collaborating with Consumers Philips, Netherlands To make the most of co-creating with consumers companies should view the practice as much more than market research, and engage the crowd in meaningful ways. Using it as simply a marketing exercise o...
	Big Ideas to Boost Innovation in Africa Open Innovation Africa Summit (OIAS²) , Kenya There is no shortage of innovators and creative talents across the African continent. However, there are a number of factors that make it more difficult for their innovations and ideas to see the lig...
	Nivea Co-Creates with the Crowd to Eliminate Stain Problem Nivea, Germany The concept of co-creation, seeking ideas and information from a group of people to help develop a product is an offshoot of open innovation and crowdsourcing, and typically involves consumers in nich...
	Open Innovation Gets Your Motor Running Factory Five, United States One of the many advantages of open innovation is that a company can tap into a deep well of knowledge, passion and enthusiasm of members of the crowd wherever they may be in the world. Provided parti...
	How Swarovski Capitalized on the Crowd Swarovski, Austria Embarking on open innovation opportunities with customers offers a company or brand new thinking, fresh perspectives, untapped ideas and publicity. Swarovski the cut crystal and luxury products ret...
	Open Innovation Approach to keep Track of Anything Deloitte, Deutsche Telekom, HYVE and RWTH Aachen University, Germany M2M (machine to machine communications) is considered to be an emerging field where state-of-the-art communications technology allows devices to communicate with each other. As such it is ripe for op...
	Smart Ideas for Plastics Processing Reifenhauser, Germany Idea contests have given the world many new ideas and novel concepts. They’ve helped us navigate the high seas (thanks to John Harrison’s marine chronometer) sent numerous planes and airships acr...
	Building a Local House with the 100 Mile Home Ideas Contest Architecture Foundation of British Columbia, Canada If you want environmental, technical or economic issues tackled just call on the crowd for swift, innovative and cost effective solutions. The crowd is used to solve a large variety of challenges w...
	Ingenious Solutions for Security Challenges Global Security Challenge - 2011, United Kingdom Every year the Global Security Challenge awards over $500,000 to entrepreneurs and innovators in the security fields who come up with ideas, technologies and innovations that make airports, cities and...
	Show Off Your Apps with the National Library of Medicine National Library of Medicine (NLM), United States Apps contests have the potential to transform seemingly dry data sets that barely see the light of day into ingenious programs that can provide better public services, easier access to information, a...
	Creating a Green World with Open Innovation ScrapLab, Thailand The beauty of crowdsource design contests is that they provide a platform for creative types to showcase their talents, which can generate unique ideas and concepts at low cost that in some instances ...
	Can $300 Change the World? Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar, United States It began as a challenge on a blog post on the ‘Harvard Business Review’ and thanks to a huge response from the public grew into a collection of 300 design submissions from all over the planet. ...
	Vodafone Americas Foundation Announces 2012 Wireless Innovation Project Winners Vodafone Americas Foundation, United States Three Groundbreaking Mobile Innovations Target Critical Issues in Agriculture, Healthcare and Developing Economies The Vodafone Americas Foundation and mHealth Alliance are pleased to announce the...
	Crowdsource Computer Game to Help Solve Global Health Problems University of Washington, United States Proteins are the building blocks of life, but they also play a part in many illnesses and conditions. Determining their structure is vital to understand the mechanisms by which diseases are caused an...
	Siemens Smart Grid Innovation Contest Siemens, Germany In 2005 the European Union adopted the Smart Grid concept to improve on energy efficiency and cut down on waste. But the power grids face a number of challenges, not least of which is an insufficient...
	Open Innovation Fuels BMW’s Ideation Process BMW, Germany For car giant BMW, open innovation offers plenty of opportunities to increase its product pipeline and to integrate external ideas into its ideation process. One of its innovation approaches is the...
	Open Innovation Gives Bus Stop a Makeover University of Utah/Utah Transit Authority, United States Crowdsourcing is a useful tool to gather ideas and concepts from diverse sources. Typically, participation is open to all and the crowd is usually characterized by several recognizable features: it i...
	The US Navy Taps the Crowd to Combat Marine Piracy The Office of Naval Research, United States There is a piracy crisis on the high seas, and according to many commentators it’s getting worse. Highly sophisticated pirate crews use the latest hi-tech equipment to locate and board ships and ta...
	Global Company’s Strong Bonds with Open Innovation Henkel, Germany When personal and home care company Henkel wanted innovative ideas and designs for packaging of its consumer adhesive products it appealed to the crowd for inspiration. Henkel’s ‘Adhesive Packa...
	Energy Efficient Managing and Transportation of Water Imagine H20, United States Non profit organization Imagine H20 has coordinated a number of open innovation initiatives to uncover cutting edge solutions to tricky water problems. One of those was the 2010 Water-Energy Nexus Co...
	Open Innovation in the Airfreight Industry is a Runway Success Lufthansa Cargo, Germany Open innovation is a powerful catalyst for radical thinking as Lufthansa Cargo is well aware of. The global cargo airline wanted to benefit from the wisdom of crowd to help reduce its environmental i...
	Zazzle’s Million Dollar Open Innovation Challenge Zazzle, United States If there’s one thing guaranteed to catch attention it’s a headline promising $1 million worth of prizes. The Zazzle Million Dollar Open Innovation Challenge offered just that and was a global sea...
	Pan European Challenge to Build Dream Apps from Public Data Open Knowledge Foundation, United Kingdom The Open Data Challenge was Europe’s biggest public data competition with a grand total of 20,000 Euros (approx. USD $27,000) worth of prize money up for grabs. It was organised by the Open Knowled...
	Tackling the Diabetes Epidemic with Open Innovation Sanofi-Aventis, United States Diabetes is an epidemic that is on the rise. In the US alone more than 1 in 4 Americans is affected by the disease. The overall cost to US healthcare is $2.6 trillion (this equates to about $21,000 p...
	Open Innovation Gets Dutch Company Out of a Sticky Situation DSM, Netherlands E-850 is an adhesive resin developed by scientists at DSM, a global science company involved in health, nutrition and materials. The resin is the main component of one of the company’s glues used w...
	To Boldly Go Where No Code Has Gone Before NASA, United States With the vast expanse of the Universe, and the sheer volume of data beamed back from telescopes and robotic missions, space scientists need all the help they can get to enable them to better explore w...
	Nokia’s Global Search for a New Ringtone Nokia Corporation, Finland It is one of the world’s most recognised tunes, and is heard at least one billion times a day. But even so, Nokia wanted to ring in the changes with a fresh version of its classic tune, ‘Grand Val...
	Scientists Ask the Crowds for Cash #The SciFund Challenge, United States In order to carry out research, scientists need funding, and the conventional way to get funding is to apply for a grant from government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or pri...
	How Dunkin’ Donuts Uses Open Innovation to Get Ahead Dunkin' Donuts, United States Open innovation, particularly via crowdsourcing competitions has a number of food companies licking their lips for the opportunity they provide to connect with customers, receive product ideas at a co...
	Mind-Blowing Ideas from Open Innovation Zyxsio, United States When Zyxio, a start-up human media interaction company developed a new breath control technology it asked the crowd for ideas on how the innovation could be used. Their patented technology is calle...
	DHL’s Search for Cutting Edge Logistics Solutions DHL, Germany International express shipping provider DHL faces a number of challenges every day as it seeks to optimize its logistics and transport activities in urban areas, whilst considering the traffic environ...
	Open Innovation Tunes into Whale Song Scientific American/The Zooniverse, United States Marine scientists have launched a global call for help deciphering the language of pilot and killer whales. Currently, understanding of their communication is poor with many of their calls remaining a...
	A Full-Length Opera Devised, Developed and Designed by the Crowd Savonlinna Opera Festival, Finland Crowdsourcing and open innovation take centre stage with a project to create a full-length opera in an online community. Since 2010 The Opera by You initiative has been drawing on ideas for music...
	No Chance of Destroying the Evidence with DARPA’s Shredder Challenge DARPA, United States The scene is a familiar one: a regime on the run shreds all its top secret documents and leaves precious little behind for incoming forces to find. That’s a scenario that provided inspiration for a...
	How the Crowd is Helping with Problems in the Classroom National Education Association Foundation & US Department of Education, United States Teacher needed a little help in the classroom to solve some of education’s most pressing challenges and so the U.S. Department of Education and the NEA (National Education Association) Foundation la...
	Phenomenal Global Response to World Bank Innovation Contest World Bank, United States “One of the reasons we threw open the doors to our data was that we recognized we don’t have a monopoly on innovation,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. “These apps clearly...
	Creating New Laws with the Crowd California State Assemblymember Jared Huffman, United States Most people at one time or another have thought that there should be laws and by-laws where none exist currently, or that aspects of the criminal code that are particularly irksome should be changed. ...
	Global Contest to Promote Economic Opportunity eBay Foundation, United States According to the World Bank 80 percent of the planet’s population lives on less than $10 per day. In the USA alone, one in every six Americans lives in poverty. These startling figures and the fac...
	A Major Food Brand's Appetite for Open Innovation Smith's Snackfood Company, Australia ...
	Open Innovation Takes Chile By Storm Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism , Chile The government of Chile has embarked on a number of initiatives to encourage its citizens to become more involved in entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. The overall aim is to ultimately bre...
	The Race to Build a Super Efficient Eco-Friendly Car X PRIZE Foundation, United States There’s nothing quite like the lure of fame and fortune to galvanise thinking and when you throw a tough challenge into the mix as well you have a heady and intoxicating combination, as the X PRIZE ...
	Open Innovation Throws the Environment a Lifeline Environmental Protection Agency, United States Open innovation and crowdsourcing solutions are being sought to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the planet a greener place to live. In June 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E...
	Open Innovation Contest for Tech-Savvy Citizens City of Ottawa, Canada In 2010, the City of Ottawa decided to embark on a new mission to encourage the development of apps to make living in the city easier. With an overall prize purse of $50,000, the Apps4Ottawa competi...
	Unilever Turns to Crowdsourcing to Promote Snack Food Brand Unilever, United Kingdom Having dropped the ad agency for one of its popular food brands Unilever decided to hold a crowdsourcing competition to find advertising ideas for Peperami, a meat snack. The company was looking for ...
	Crowdfunding Platform to Educate Children Wins Hackathon Garage48 Foundation, Estonia Crowdsourcing hackathons are valuable initiatives that can generate volumes of ideas and workable solutions in a short space of time. Typically they are day-long or two day-long, focused team-based e...
	Crowdsourcing Goes Up in the World: DARPA Balloon Hunt DARPA, United States Crowdsourcing showed its true character and worth as a very effective finding tool in the DARPA Network Challenge sponsored by US government agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). ...
	Crowdsourcing Project Exposes Politicians' Wrong Doings The Guardian Newspaper, United Kingdom In 2009 crowdsourcing helped to blow the lid off the biggest political scandal to hit the UK in at least a decade. The Daily Telegraph newspaper had obtained the expenses details of all members o...
	Crowdsourcing to Understand the Molecules of Life Carnegie Mellon University/Stanford University , United States RNA (ribonucleic acid) is one of life’s fundamental building blocks and a key messenger and regulator of cell functions, but there is still a great deal of information that science has yet to learn ...
	Crowdsourcing Apps to Make a Difference IdeasProject/Nokia, United States Can an app truly change the world? That was the question that sparked the creation of a crowdsourcing apps contests organised by IdeasProject an online community founded on the philosophy of democrat...
	Ben and Jerry’s Scoop on Crowdsourcing Ben and Jerry's, United States Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's know a thing or two about creating popular flavors, and is well known for viewing its customers as co-creators, valuing and taking note of many of their suggestions and f...
	Open Innovation Leads to Medical Device Breakthroughs Diabetes Mine, United States A futuristic modular three-part wearable artificial pancreas, an innovative small, portable insulin-delivery device and an iPhone/iPod touch app to help diabetic teenage girls develop a glucose testin...
	Crowdsourcing Contest Winner to Help New York City's Commuters New York City Government, United States Nick Nyhan was driving around New York City late one night and was becoming increasingly frustrated at not being able to find a parking space. That moment of irritation was his inspiration for a soci...
	Airlines Crowdsource New Products with the General Public Emirates, United Arab Emirates Crowdsourcing with customers is not only smart PR, but it can also save a company large sums of money as it doesn’t have to engage employees in endless rounds of meetings to come up with ideas and i...
	Pooling Intelligence to Deal with Global Warming The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence , United States To many people, climate change and global warming are among the most pressing and important issues facing humanity today, requiring creative and innovative solutions to ensure the long term health of ...
	Supermarket Chain Crowdsources with Customers Waitrose, United Kingdom In May 2011 a new product hit the shelves of upmarket UK supermarket chain Waitrose. What made this particular item so special was that it was the company’s first customer-created product and follo...
	Crowdsourcing to Make a City Cool Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, United States It’s not only businesses that are benefiting from crowdsourcing initiatives as towns and cities have cottoned onto the fact that they can pick up great ideas to improve communities and neighborhoods...
	The World’s First Crowdsourced Military Vehicle DARPA, United States The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) employs some of the sharpest brains on the planet to develop new technology to be used by the US military. But it does not have all the bright id...
	Crowdsourcing Down on the Farm The National Trust, United Kingdom Crowdsourcing is becoming part of the innovation fabric of more and more businesses and brands. It is not only being used to create new products and services, but also to determine research focus and...
	GreenBook: A New Chapter in Environmental Participation Paul Frigout, Romania The crowd is a permanently loud presence. Whether we’re tweeting or emailing our opinions to newspapers, broadcasting our own footage across the web or offering advice to retailers we have somethin...
	Apps for Africa Appfrica Labs, Uganda The technological transformations that have swept across many parts of the world have also been making inroads into the African continent. For example, in East Africa alone there are more than 50 mil...
	Crowdsourcing Competition to Inspire Russian Innovation Skolkovo Foundation , Russia To help give innovation a boost in Russia, the Skolkovo Foundation and Cisco launched a crowdsourcing competition for entrepreneurs, students, technologists and innovators who are residents and citize...
	Crowdsourcing Contest Offers $3 Million Prize Heritage Provider Network, United States Crowdsourcing is a now a familiar concept on the open innovation landscape with new competitions and initiatives being launched every week. It is all part of a large trend that is opening up corpora...
	Random Hacks of Kindness RHOK, United States Hackers of the world united in 2009 for the first global ‘Random Hacks of Kindness” (RHOK) crowdsourcing program to create software solutions that make a difference. Since then the community ...
	Apps to Help the Poor to Help Themselves One Economy Corporation, United States Leveraging the power of the crowd to create applications for the public good was the inspiring goal of the ‘Applications for Good’ crowdsourcing competition. Sponsored by One Economy Corporation,...
	Crowdsourcing Competition to Reduce and Eliminate Waste Adventure Ecology, United Kingdom Nobody is as smart as everybody is the foundation that crowdsourcing is built on, an innovation process that can be deployed to tackle any kind of problem and change the way systems, companies and soc...
	Crowdsourcing Challenge to Find Innovative Ways to Air Dry Clothes Levi Strauss & Co, United States On the face of it a solar powered dome, a windmill and a dryer hidden behind a work of art have very little in common. What links them is that they were all creative submissions to a crowdsourcing a...
	Crowdsourcing, Potato Chips and Healthy Sales Figures Walkers, United Kingdom Walkers is a British snack food manufacturer, most famous in the UK for its flavored crisps (potato chips). Despite a strong market presence, extensive advertising campaigns and years of bumper sales...
	Crowdsourcing Climate Change Solutions The Government of British Columbia, Canada The Government of British Columbia is a recognized leader in taking action to promote environmental sustainability and forward thinking green practices. As with other public bodies and organizations...
	From Concepts to Products in Under 48 Hours Music Hackday, United Kingdom Take a few hundred artists, musicians and hackers and squirrel them away for a weekend and the end result is a neat demonstration of the power of the crowd. The Music Hack Day Series is a turbo-charg...
	Global Innovation Jam to Design a Brand New Service Work Play Experience, Germany On Friday 11th March 2011 at more than fifty locations around the world, hundreds of participants interested in services and customer experience took part in 48 hours of ‘innovation jamming’. T...
	Apps for Healthy Kids United States Department of Agriculture, United States Crowdsourcing has been deployed in the nationwide US fight against obesity. To get children off their sofas and to exercise more the First Lady Michelle Obama launched an open innovation competition...
	Finding Solutions to India’s Sanitation Problems FINISH Society, India Open innovation enjoys an impressive track record in helping to tackle numerous problems and issues in the developing world, such as lack of access to clean water, the threat of mosquitoes and malaria...
	Empowering Women in the Developing World mWomen Connect, United States The Spring 2011 Mobile App Challenge organised by the GSMA (Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association) was a series of open innovation contests aimed at the app developer community and anybody else with ide...
	CivicApps for Greater Portland The City of Portland, United States These days the most forward thinking CEOs see how collaboration can play a big part in their success and are being seduced by the benefits of open innovation. What’s good for private industry is al...
	Global Search for Healthcare Ideas Ashoka Changemakers, United States Open innovation has already created an explosive growth in innovative solutions and product ideas in a range of disciplines, encompassing such disparate fields as t-shirt designs and aeronautical engi...
	App My Ride Volkswagen , Germany Open innovation and in particular open innovation contests are becoming more mainstream as companies large and small look for new ways to innovate, solve problems and steal a march on their competitor...
	Haiti Earthquake Disaster Inspires Open Innovation Contest ARCHIVE (Architecture for Health In Vulnerable Environments), United States After the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010 thousands of volunteers and aid groups flocked into the impoverished country to administer food, water, first aid and to start the rebuilding efforts....
	Open Innovation Revs Up the Car Industry Local Motors, United States Local Motors creates car designs through a series of open innovation and crowdsourcing initiatives. The Arizona-based company was co-founded in 2007 based on its belief that the car industry was not m...
	Car Giant adopts Open Innovation to get into the Fast Lane BMW, Germany Car giant BMW has for a number of years now been reaching out to engineers and innovators with open innovation and crowd sourcing initiatives. The most recent incarnation of which has been its Co-C...
	Open Innovation Contest to Design a More Efficient Apartment Treehugger.com "LifeEdited", United States Breakthrough ideas can and often do emerge by having a fresh set of eyes look at a problem. Open innovation can bring new and diverse perspectives to bear on old and familiar dilemmas which is what a...
	Fiat Mio, the World's First Crowdsourced Car Fiat, Italy In Sao Paulo Auto Show that happened in October 2010, Fiat launched the Fiat Mio, the world's first crowd sourced car, a futuristic concept car based on the ideas of thousands of people around the wor...
	Open Innovation to Rebuild an Economy The Government of Ireland, Ireland For a number of years now governments at all levels in numerous countries have been experimenting with open innovation. The principle aims are to provide better services for constituents and to open ...
	Crystal Clear Advantages of Open Innovation Swarovski, Austria These days companies are tapping into an almost bottomless well of ideas; consumer creativity. Traditional business models are being tweaked and amended to favor user-generated content and open inno...
	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 "<a href=http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/4751 target=_blan...
	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...
	NASA uses Open Innovation Contest to develop Moonraker Paul's Robotics, United States If humans are ever going to live on the moon or indeed if we are to harness some of its natural resources we’re going to need the tools to be able to dig up and dump thousands of tones of lunar soil...
	Dye Sensitized Thin Film Solar Cells G24 Innovations, United Kingdom It is a sobering thought; there are currently 1.7 billion people around the world without electricity. The problem is at its most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where more than five hundred million peop...
	Open Innovation: Astronaut Glove Peter Homer, United States Out in the cold depths of space an astronaut’s glove can swell up like a balloon. It becomes stiff, stubborn and rigid, making the handling and manipulation of objects extremely onerous. It is a pr...
	Open Innovation: Glycerin for Art Restoration Drew Buschhorn, United States Cyclododecane is a wax-like organic compound that was used by art conservationists as a temporary sealant for weak and fragile objects. It worked well, but it was very expensive and not particularly...
	Open Innovation: Bagel-fuls Gary Schwartzberg, United States When Irene Rosenfeld flew into the top job at Kraft in 2006 she inherited a company that was losing market share, in part due to its lackluster production pipeline. The pressure was on for the big ch...
	Open Innovation: Pringles Print Bakery in Bologna, Italy Procter and Gamble are open innovation giants, with more than 35% of their new ideas coming from outside sources. However, it hasn’t always been this way. Historically P&G relied on internal r...
	Open Innovation: Diabetes Genetics Initiative Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University - USA, Lund University from Sweden, and Novartis from Switzerland, United States Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, where the body does not produce enough insulin, or the insulin that is produced is abnormal. The condition affects more than 170 million people a...
	Open Innovation: Smart Grid Anna Gossen and Niels Gossen from Germany, Sergey Bessonnitsyn from Russia, Germany Cisco, the computer networking giant created a global contest to come up with new ideas and markets that would fuel its future. Business Opportunities Cisco’s I-Prize developed out of the comp...
	Open Innovation: DocumentCloud Eric Umansky, Scott Klein, Aron Pilhofer, Ben Koski, United States First there were newspapers, then television, and now it’s the Internet. The media landscape is moving fast with new technologies forever changing the way that news is delivered and received. News...
	Open Innovation: Netflix Prize BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos It was the three-year computer competition that had mathematicians, statisticians, software engineers and cyber geeks from all over the world working feverishly toward a $1 million prize. The chall...
	Open Innovation: Goldcorp Challenge Fractal Graphics, and Taylor Wall & Associates, Australia Rob McEwen was sitting on a fortune; the trouble was he didn’t know exactly where it was located. It’s the year 2000 and the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., a gold producer headquartered in Vancouver, Ca...
	Open Innovation: Exxon Valdez Cleanup John Davis, United States Despite extensive cleanup efforts more than 26 thousand US gallons of oil remained at the bottom of Prince William Sound, nearly twenty years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground. The oil tanker had ...
	Open Innovation: X-Prize Burt Rutan, United States Ever since Yuri Gagarin whistled round the Earth aboard Vostok 1 and Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind millions of ordinary mortals have entertained the thought, “Gee I wouldn’t mind ...