InnoCentive is putting out the call on the Net for eco-friendly answers
Companies ask Web surfers for solutions to tough questions
The quest for green, clean technologies is about to get a boost from a research and development team 140,000 strong, scattered across 175 countries.
With InnoCentive Inc., a Waltham firm that has become an eBay-type marketplace for complex scientific questions, the Barr Foundation and the Cambridge Energy Alliance last week announced a $30,000 prize to the inventor who comes up with a new, efficient air conditioner.
The hope is that in the same way that the Web has democratized other areas of society, by giving unknown bloggers or amateur auteurs a global audience, innovative problem solvers across many fields may come up with novel solutions to complex problems in biology, chemistry, public policy, and global health.
InnoCentive was spun out of drug maker Eli Lilly and Co. and over the past two years has rapidly expanded its focus from problems in chemistry or the life sciences to include a search for solutions to problems in developing countries, global health, and the environment.
There can be an advantage in "putting these challenges that haven't been solved within a company's own R&D organization, putting it in front of scientists and engineers in other industries or disciplines," said Lisa Reinhold, vice president of client services for InnoCentive. "A lot of the times, the answers come from adjacent disciplines - they don't necessarily come from where you expect them to come from."
The idea of "crowdsourcing" problems has recently come into vogue among companies, said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester analyst and coauthor of "Groundswell," a book about social technologies and business.
At MyStarbucksIdea.com, Starbucks customers have a shot at shaping the future of their latte by submitting suggestions and voting on proposals by others. DellIdeaStorm.com gives the company's customers and critics the ability to suggest new services or products, from screen resolutions to backlit keyboards.
"InnoCentive is sort of a professional version - because as you can imagine, 'Help us devise a new method for electroplating at 30 percent less use of electricity' is not the sort of thing people are going to suggest solutions to for free," said Bernoff. The market may ultimately be somewhat limited - it's unclear whether "crowdsourcing" is the best way to cook up solutions to such vast problems. For instance, this week the company will add a Global Health Pavilion to its challenges, with a $10,000 prize for ideas about improving the US healthcare system.
But with $3 million in prizes awarded since the company was founded in 2001, and 250 challenges "solved," the model could be a fruitful way of sparking new innovative answers to questions that may have stymied a particular company's research team.
That is what drew the Barr Foundation to InnoCentive in a quest for an efficient air conditioner that could dramatically reduce energy usage, especially in older housing stock that is prevalent in Cambridge.
"The thinking was this was an area for something really out of the box," said Kathryn Plazak, a consultant for Barr Foundation. A chance "to leapfrog the current technology."
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com. 