The Hindu Business Line : Ideas from the ‘crowd’

October featured the most recent of IBM’s Innovation Jams — online chats to brainstorm new ideas for technologies from people as co-developers as well as customers. IBM’s openness to innovation from outside its four walls goes beyond these Innovation Jams. The company sees real value in letting a community of scientists use supercomputer Blue Gene freely to see what they come up with. If something valuable emerges, IBM is perfectly positioned to share in the profits.

IBM isn’t the only company that is breaking innovation barriers in this way. When Danish toy manufacturer Lego discovered that enthusiasts were hacking its popular ‘Mindstorms’ robot kits, the company decided to invite them to co-create new toy designs. Telecom giant Nokia has done away with expensive marketing campaigns by establishing Beta Labs to co-develop innovations with end-users. Kraftfoods recently launched an Open Innovation Web portal to solicit ideas for new products from the ‘crowd’. The list goes on — Toyota, Proctor and Gamble, and other market leaders have all pioneered open innovation models to grow their business.

The poster child for crowdsourcing is, of course, InnoCentive ( www.innocentive.com). Spun-off from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in 2001, InnoCentive allows companies to tap into a global community of scientists for R&D solutions. Companies post challenges online — an assay to be developed, a compound formulation, a theoretical question — and offer a monetary award for the answer. The advantages? They get to: Use the Internet to lower transaction costs of outsourcing challenges to anyone, anywhere with connectivity

Get fresh perspectives and creativity from multiple disciplines and unlimited geographies

Harness the competitive spirit of people and lower the risks of investment in R&D by paying only for those solutions that work.

So, clearly, innovation has been moving from a “closed”, inward-looking or “supply”-driven process to an open and networked process. It is transforming the way companies develop new products, services and knowledge, says UC Berkeley economist Henry Chesbrough. Although it isn’t really a new concept, what is different today is our connectivity — we now have an unprecedented opportunity to use technology to harness global creativity.

For the poor?

Open innovation is bringing benefits to wealthy consumers and companies in the developed world. Can this spirit of openness now also move to the sector that serves the poor people of the world – the other five billion? In recent years, some examples have begun to emerge from the development sector.

Crowdsourcing: The Rockefeller Foundation partnered with InnoCentive to allow researchers and entrepreneurs who work on the needs of poor people to use InnoCentive’s open innovation platform. Several challenges focused on technologies for rural communities have been posted and solved on InnoCentive. The first challenge was for the redesign of a solar-powered light that can now be used by villagers both as a torch and for general indoor lighting. The non-profit company that posted the challenge, SunnightSolar ( www.sunnightsolar.com), is now manufacturing the new lights and will begin distribution later this year in rural Africa.

Collaborative Competitions: This combines two seemingly contradictory approaches to identifying and enhancing innovations: competition but also open collaboration. Changemakers ( www.changemakers.net) conducts these open ‘collaborative competitions’ on behalf of sponsors on topics like Disruptive Innovation in Healthcare, Conflict Solutions and Affordable Housing. Competition entries are posted transparently online for anyone to view. By working together as a community, the competitor-participants can help others modify their approaches and adapt their own. This year, Changemakers held a competition for ideas that have potential to transform sanitation. The competition received 265 entries, put a spotlight on local innovations and highlighted them for global investors. One of the winners was Slum Networking in India, which exploits natural drainage paths to provide quality and low-cost water, sanitation and drainage systems for slums.

User-Driven Innovation (UDI): This originates from end-users themselves and is therefore likely to be culturally and socially well-suited to their requirements. User innovation has been around for decades, as evidenced by adventure sports enthusiasts (the mountain-biking industry grew out of user-generated innovation) and computer hobbyists (the open source movement). MIT innovation guru Eric von Hippel explains that users are motivated to develop and modify products and services for their own use: “because they can’t get from the manufacturers exactly what they want.” What is different today is that the Internet has made it much easier for user innovators to swap insights and share ideas. Sites like Ideawicket ( www.ideawicket.com) allow ordinary users to share ideas, with a potential to unearth value for markets. IIM-Ahmedabad’s Prof Anil Gupta has gained widespread recognition for highlighting rural user-innovations through the Honey Bee Network ( www.sristi.org/honeybee.html).

To have greater impact, UDI must be recognised and replicated or disseminated to other users. In the for-profit context, companies search for innovations and then scale or commercialise the innovations. Rural Innovations Network (RIN, www.rinovations.org) is a Chennai-based not-for-profit company that is identifying and incubating grassroots technological innovations for rural markets. For example, they have helped an innovator develop a novel energy-efficient burner for kerosene stoves that delivers savings, lasts longer than conventional burners, is safer to use, and is easy to maintain — making it very appealing to the rural consumer.

What’s next?

The buzz around open innovation today is not all just buzz — technology that helps us connect with each other has really created a unique opportunity to change how we create new products and services. This is a great opportunity to harness open innovation for poor people.

Related Stories:
Budget boost for browsing-on-the-move
Google makes ‘open offer’ to Indian developers

More Stories on : Internet | Research & Development

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Yoga heals

Cheers to Alsatian wine

Ideas from the ‘crowd’

Niagara encounter

Hot from Jiggs’ kitchen

Wars fought by children