Ang Peregrino Recommends 15: Inno​Cen​tive​.Com

Inno​Cen​tive​.Com
URL: http://​inno​cen​tive​.com/

Inno­cen­tive is about giv­ing incen­tive to inno­va­tion. This is the web­site where the tough­est prob­lems meet the bright­est minds. Where peo­ple are asked to solve the prob­lems no one else has been able to solve.

And that is just so cool.

There are two types of mar­ket in Inno​cen​tive​.com: the SEEKERS are the orga­ni­za­tions with chal­leng­ing prob­lems, and the SOLVERS are the smart peo­ple with cre­ative solutions.

This is one real and suc­cess­ful case of crowd­sourc­ing. Many big cor­po­ra­tions and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions have come up with inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts through Innocentive.

It all begins with a CHALLENGE. Chal­leng­ing prob­lems need­ing prac­ti­cal solu­tions are put out in the web­site for inno­v­a­tive minds to start think­ing about. Inno­Cen­tive Solvers work across four dif­fer­ent stages of the prod­uct devel­op­ment process — 1) ideation (or brain­storm­ing the Big Idea), 2) design, 3) prod­uct pro­to­type and 4) deliv­ery of final prod­uct. Proc­ter and Gam­ble uses the net­work for this very purpose.

Inno­cen­tive is also help­ing the devel­op­ing world: there was a call for a solar-powered lamp/flashlight hybrid to bring much-needed light to vil­lages in Africa and other remote areas of the world. Rus­sell McMa­hon, an elec­tri­cal engi­neer from New Zealand, solved the first Chal­lenge and was awarded $20,000. The flashlight/lamp hybrid is designed to work for up to 20 years with­out break­ing. Rus­sel was gra­cious enough to send me the weblink to his prod­uct. Click here to know more about BoGo LIGHT.

The sec­ond Chal­lenge asked for a cost-effective food grinder that could eas­ily grind both wet and dry spices, thus pro­vid­ing a more effi­cient food prepa­ra­tion tool for impov­er­ished sec­tors of India. Pre­vi­ously peo­ple used Pin Pul­ver­izer machines to grind dry grains into fine pow­ders. How­ever, these machines would clog and break when used to grind spices such as chili or corian­der because of their higher mois­ture con­tent. Tom Kruer, a Kentucky-based (USA) prod­uct design engi­neer and entre­pre­neur, solved the sec­ond Chal­lenge by devel­op­ing an easily-interchangeable blade that con­verts the cur­rent dry-spice grinder into a multi-functional machine. By remov­ing the cur­rent dry-blade, and replac­ing it with the new one, the grinder can be con­verted within min­utes from a dry-grinder to a moist-grinder.

For its con­tin­u­ing quest to solve the world’s inno­va­tion chal­lenges, and for being the link between the Seek­ers and Solvers of this world, Inno​cen​tive​.Com is what AngPere­grino rec­om­mends this week.

Founded in 2001, Inno­Cen­tive built the first global web com­mu­nity for open inno­va­tion, enabling sci­en­tists, engi­neers, pro­fes­sion­als and entre­pre­neurs to col­lab­o­rate to deliver break­through solu­tions for R&D-driven orga­ni­za­tions. Inno­Cen­tive Seek­ers, who col­lec­tively spend bil­lions of dol­lars on R&D, sub­mit com­plex prob­lems to the Inno­Cen­tive Mar­ket­place where more than 140,000 engi­neers, sci­en­tists, inven­tors, busi­ness peo­ple, and research orga­ni­za­tions in more than 175 coun­tries are invited to solve them. Solvers who deliver the most inno­v­a­tive solu­tions receive finan­cial awards rang­ing up to US$1,000,000. InnoCentive’s Seek­ers include com­mer­cial, gov­ern­ment and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions such as Eli Lilly and Com­pany, Janssen, Solvay, Glob­al­Giv­ing and The Rock­e­feller Foundation.

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