7/31/2019 Crowdsourced Competitions Lead Open Innovation

1/3

Crowdsourced Competitions Lead Open Innovation,

Social Change

Along with the rise of the social enterprise in the last few years, online competitions have

come to battle the worst social and environmental issues. Like the for-profits before them,

contests used to be thought of as purely greedy, money-driven ideas. Think of lotteries and

sweepstakes; both being a quick chance at easy cash that holds an allure in modern

society. Even today if you search the Web

for online competitions all you will find is

scores of sites promising to make you rich.It wasnt always like this. One of the

earliest noteworthy competitions for

change occurred in France during the Age

of Enlightenment. In the 1770s, a wide-

spread famine swept through much of

Europe, starving a large percentage of the

population. In reaction to this catastrophe, the Academie de Besanon offered a prize to

whomever could discover "food substances capable of reducing the calamities of famine."

The winner was Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French military chemist and botanist, who

brought the potato into the mainstream circulation that we still see on dinner plates in the

21st century.Changemakers like Parmentier and the impact challenge he won have become more

commonplace with the rise of social networks and Internet-based engagement. From

corporate community-improvement campaigns like thePepsi Refresh Projectto global

competitions from the likes ofGOOD MakerandOpenIDEOto locally based contests like

theMinnesota Idea Open, online competition curators are scouring the Web and finding

thousands of new, innovative ideas at lightning speed.One of the early competition-for-change pioneers isAshoka Changemakers, an online

storytelling community of changemakers that launched into a competition platform in 2004.

Fast forward to 2012 and the platform has funneled over $600 million to social innovators

worldwide from 50-plus contests, engaging an excess of 10,700 participants in 125

countries.This new-found ability to raise vast sums of money to fight intractable global problems has

given organizations, nonprofit and for-profit alike, a new front on which to engage and

introduce world citizens to their causes. Similar to online competitions, crowdfunding sites

http://buoyantaspect.blogspot.com/2012/08/crowdsourced-competitions-lead-to-open.htmlhttp://buoyantaspect.blogspot.com/2012/08/crowdsourced-competitions-lead-to-open.htmlhttp://www.refresheverything.com/http://www.refresheverything.com/http://www.refresheverything.com/http://maker.good.is/http://maker.good.is/http://maker.good.is/http://www.openideo.com/http://www.openideo.com/http://www.openideo.com/http://www.mnideaopen.org/http://www.mnideaopen.org/http://www.mnideaopen.org/http://www.changemakers.com/http://www.changemakers.com/http://www.changemakers.com/http://www.changemakers.com/http://www.mnideaopen.org/http://www.openideo.com/http://maker.good.is/http://www.refresheverything.com/http://buoyantaspect.blogspot.com/2012/08/crowdsourced-competitions-lead-to-open.htmlhttp://buoyantaspect.blogspot.com/2012/08/crowdsourced-competitions-lead-to-open.html

7/31/2019 Crowdsourced Competitions Lead Open Innovation

2/3

have also become a growing force in the fight for good. Most people now know Kickstarter,

butStartSomeGood,33Needs,iobyand a handful of other sites are now focused purely on

social ventures.The difference between crowdfunding and competitions is a grey area, like much of the

social landscape around it. An online competition uses crowdfunding to procure ideas onlinewhile crowdfunding platforms do the same, but usually focusing on the tangible -- business,

project or startup ideas -- instead of potential solutions.The most recent Changemakers contest,Activating Empathy: Transforming Schools to

Teach What Matters, aims to do just as the title implies, but on a global scale.Ashokas big vision is that before you can become a social entrepreneur or changemaker

you need to have empathy and understand others, explained Lauren Parnell Marino,

Changemakers community manager. Empathy is a skill. Its being able to take on other

perspectives. And its the first step to large-scale, big change in every sector across theworld.GOOD, the popular magazine and online community, introduced their new online challenge

platform in November. Its called GOOD Maker and was created to empower any person,

organization or company to find the best ideas. Anyone can create a challenge with a

variety of goals in mind, including but not limited to: fixing a niche problem, idea generation,

issue targeting, or designating effective solution parameters.We thought to ourselves, wouldnt it be great if anyone could do something like Pepsi

Refresh Project themselves, says Jen Chiou, general manager of GOOD Maker.And they did. GOOD leveled the playing field for people with ideas that were slipping

through the cracks of formal solution creation via think-tanks or corporate-innovation

departments. Their ideas werent being discovered, and thus, werent being recognized or

utilized.To date, over 30,000 members have used the GOOD Maker platform to submit ideas,

interact with the community, or vote.Even with the likes of Ashoka Changemakers and GOOD Maker leading the pack in arelatively new field, innovation never stops. With a new beta site launch a few weeks ago,

Changemakers isnt showing any signs of slowing down. Their next step? Building out

online changeshops where anyone with an idea can set up goals, activate their networks,

collaborate and earn a chance at funding.Changing the dynamic from competition to collaboration might be just what the doctor, or

http://startsomegood.com/http://startsomegood.com/http://startsomegood.com/http://ready.33needs.com/http://ready.33needs.com/http://ready.33needs.com/http://www.ioby.org/http://www.ioby.org/http://www.ioby.org/http://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.changemakers.com/innovationshttp://www.changemakers.com/innovationshttp://www.changemakers.com/innovationshttp://www.changemakers.com/innovationshttp://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.changemakers.com/empathyhttp://www.ioby.org/http://ready.33needs.com/http://startsomegood.com/

7/31/2019 Crowdsourced Competitions Lead Open Innovation

3/3

social entrepreneur, ordered..