The rise of open innovation is transforming industries and sectors worldwide. We assist organizations in embracing collaboration, agility, and diverse perspectives on integrating various approaches to open innovation. By working closely with them, we help develop best practices that harness the power of networks to unlock disruption or stay ahead of it. Open Innovation Contests, calls, and competitions can shape how we approach openness and realize practical and impactful ways to realize it.
Open innovation calls are initiatives where organizations invite external innovators, startups, and sometimes even the public to propose solutions to specific business or industry challenges. This practice fosters collaboration and taps into a diversity of perspectives. Today, we observe significant trends in this open innovation landscape through startup contests, calls, and competitions. As an increasing number of players enter the field, there's been a surge in participation across varied entrepreneurial ecosystems. Moreover, these initiatives are now more custom-tailored to tackle industry-specific challenges and stimulate unconventional collaboration.
The digital era has revolutionized this space; virtual platforms have widened the geographical boundaries, enabling a global reach that is here to stay. The recent involvement of development agencies has further refined the focus on social impact, among other benefits. The ascent of open innovation is revolutionizing industries and sectors across the globe. At OHK, we assist organizations in navigating these transformations, encouraging them to embrace collaboration, agility, and many perspectives. By partnering closely with these organizations, we develop best practices that leverage the power of open innovation to unlock potential, drive progress, and tackle intricate challenges.
Our expertise is pinpointing the success factors that make open innovation contests, calls, and competitions effective. Additionally, we understand how they can be strategically designed and implemented in many sectors using best practices. With a rich ecosystem of startup competitions, we empower organizations to run successful events that enable entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative ideas, products, and services to an extensive network of industry leaders, mentors, and investors.
Defining how competitions can address strategy gaps, communication silos, and digital infrastructure deficiencies, and what obstacles prevent an organization from hosting them.
Crafting the goals and purpose of the competition and a high-level roadmap to guide participants toward productive outcomes while preserving their freedom to innovate.
Ensure a robust digital platform can handle the competition's logistics and operations demands emphasizing reliability, performance, scalability, ease of use, user experience, and integration capabilities.
Ensure the chosen platform offers resources and tools for forging collaboration and innovation. Move beyond outdated submission-only platforms and embrace productivity tools to empower participants.
Explore captivating topics to inspire participants to foster high-quality submissions and offer freedom to choose topics aligned with innovation needs or, even better, allow freeform exploration.
Implement a strategy to maximize reach, employ various channels, from press releases to social media to partnerships, and keep communities engaged throughout the contest.
Fostering a cooperative circle; designing a diverse range of roles, from voters to expert judges, mentors, and final pitch judges, each playing a part in the collaborative spirit of the competition.
Using channels like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to provide updates, gather feedback, engage with the community, and enhance the competition's visibility and engagement.
Engaging with universities, incubators, and accelerators to bring in a rich pool of talent and innovative ideas and enhance the quantity and quality of submissions in innovation contests.
Highlight emerging technologies to nurture groundbreaking applications, driving innovation and disruption across various sectors.
Placing a greater emphasis on social impact and sustainability, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and innovative solutions to pressing global challenges, including poverty, climate change, and inequality.
Support beyond the competition to offer mentoring, networking opportunities, and access to funding to help transition startups to viable businesses.