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Open Innovation (Crowdsourcing) Open, or distributed, innovation is a relatively new innovation model that sources innovation resources from outside an institution. It allows companies/institutions to capture the distributed knowledge within a wide network of actors to solve a problem. It is a way of increasing the flow of ideas into the innovation process. Crowdsourcing is one example of the open innovation model, exemplified by InnoCentive.
This is a unique approach in that it combines two seemingly contradictory approaches – competition with open collaboration – to identifying and enhancing innovations. Changemakers (an Ashoka program) conducts open social innovation 'collaborative competitions' on behalf of sponsors. These Collaborative Competitions “open source” innovative, workable solutions to the world’s most entrenched social problems and allow for best practice sharing, learning and further collaboration.
User/Customer-Centered InnovationUser or customer-centered innovation incorporates the needs and input of the customer or user into the innovation process. Leading design company IDEO offers consulting services to other companies and institutions that are looking to enhance product design through ethnographic and anthropological research. They apply human-centered approaches to help companies design better products, services and organizational structure.
User-Generated or User-Driven Innovation
User-Generated or User-Driven Innovation (UDI) originates from end-users themselves and is therefore likely to be culturally and socially well-suited to their particular problems and needs. This model recognizes that poor people are resourceful and innovative and often solve their own problems through their own means. To have greater impact, UDI must be recognized and replicated or disseminated to other users.
We currently focus on the following non-profit approaches to user-driven innovation:Positive Deviance
Positive Deviance (PD) is a non-profit innovation model with a growing network of users. The Positive Deviance approach unearths user-generated social and behavioral innovations and enables their diffusion and dissemination. PD is a social and behavioral change approach, based on the observation that in every community or organization there are certain individuals or groups whose uncommon practices enable them to find better solutions to prevalent problems than their neighbors or colleagues who have access to the same resources.Rural Innovations Network
Rural Innovations Network (RIN) is a not-for-profit entity based in South India, supported by Lemelson Foundation. Its mission is to identify and incubate grassroots technological innovations developed largely by rural users that can have a significant impact on rural lives and to enable these innovations to reach rural markets. RIN identifies these innovations and helps to develop and retail the innovations that have commercial potential.Prolinnova
Prolinnova is a network of organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America that promotes and disseminates local innovation in ecologically-oriented agriculture and natural resource management. Prolinnova’s work builds on the farmer participatory approaches, and it pushes the approach to truly unearth and support innovations coming from farmers. They have recently piloted Local Innovation Support Funds in several countries to support farmers in their experimentation with new innovative practices in the field.
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