Potential topics for Open Innovation “Final project”

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I want to start with the definition of Open Innovation which I liked the most “Open Innovation is about to outsource part of the innovation process to external actors outside the company.” You can have more details from here. I was thinking to list down some of the example topics which can be selected as the final project for the course “Open and User Innovation”. This might be helpful for future students who are taking the course ME1033. What I fathomed  from our course teacher, he wants a project topic which focuses on analyzing and discussing about a real innovation project endeavored by someone or by a company, rather than discussing a descriptive idea or approach related to open innovation.
Open_Innovation from Internet

Yes, there are some regular postulatory approach which can be selected as a project and some of them are relevant to the course. For example innovation ecosystem, circular innovation, the future of open innovation, opportunities and barriers of open innovation, contrast between open innovation and business strategy and so on. If someone wants to discuss about these topics in their project, then they have to do a general and fairly an elaborate discussion. Someone will draw the examples of other companies from the past and will make an academic analysis just like other reading materials (home assignments). The articles listed as home reading materials, are written by the open innovation researchers and renowned experts who are aware of this field for several years. Therefore, they are able to write a useful article drawing the examples of various initiatives of big or small companies. They are skilled to write such elaborate topic based on their long time research and experience of such a topic. This is not the scenario for most of the students who are taking this course. Normally, few students were aware of “Open innovation and crowdsourcing” before taking the course ME1033.

Instead of discussing aforementioned expository topics, the course participants can choose a particular example of open innovation, which already exists and discuss how it was an open innovation and what is the outcome or impact. What kind of strategies the company or agency followed to make the innovation. If they are successful, then finding the key reasons why it was successful or if it wasn’t successful, then the reasons can be explained too.
Here is a list of the example topics which could be selected as the “final project”:

1) Wikidata project
2) The Lego case
3) Any Linux distribution making money out of it
4) The Orange Fab
5) Netflix campaign
6) Super-Efficient Refrigerator Program (SERP)
7) The Ansari-X prize
8) Open-source Arduino revolution /”CHIP” by Next Thing Co.
9) The Quirky Collaboration
10) Local Motors: co-creating the car industry
11) Threadless.com : Customers that submit, inspect, and approve T-shirt
12) “Kickstarter” : synonymous for crowdfunding
13) P&G’s Connect + Develop
14) Volvo’s XC90 NPD to co-create SUV
15) TopCoder : always finds a solution

 

Best of luck!!

Experience at Tele2 Hack Day competition

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I had heard of companies organising hack day competitions but had no idea what people do in such events until recently when i participated in Tele2 Hack Day event on 10th of November, 2015. The event was for one day. The initial motivation for going to such an event came from the free food that they were offering. When we first went there, i was expecting to work on some ideas that the organisers would give us but this was different. We were asked to bring up our own idea, develop it and pitch the idea to the jury. This was unexpected and we were supposed to be a four member team. Though the organisers had already given us contact details of the team members, we could not be in touch until the event day except for one guy whom i knew from college. Only three of us from my team showed up on the day. The other guy was a student from Stockholm University. For the first half an hour we did not talk to each other apart from the initial Hi and hello. Then we asked a member from the volunteer team to help us in suggesting some ideas. She did not give us any idea but told that we can work on anything we want. So, we started with discussing the problems we face in our daily lives. One issue we all faced was carrying too many cards in our wallet. We all agreed to work on a solution to this problem. The volunteers also felt that this was an issue that most of the people face and a solution to such a problem would be a good idea. The three of us had never worked together and one was a complete stranger. But it did not take time for us to work together and shoot ideas to solve the problem. This competition is not only about competing to win the prize but also to help us know different people, people from different backgrounds and also how well one can interact with them and work as a team. This kind of opportunity also helps in networking with industry peoples. The executives of the company mingle with you and are as excited as we are while competing with others.

After putting different ideas on the board we decided to go for one idea that could be done with in a short time. We started to work on the idea. Each one of us were from different study track. I am from Human computer interaction, one was from Embedded systems and the Stockholm University guy was from Game development. So, we worked on different aspects of the idea. My part was to create a mobile app. Before this event i had not made any mobile application. Before this, I had just started with the android app development tutorials but did not have sufficient knowledge to build an app. So, i thought this we would be a great opportunity to fast track my learning of app development. We had to build a basic app with fake datas. I googled the parts i needed for the app. This helped me in getting the idea of how apps are created using android studio software. It took me around 3 hours to complete the basic app which was quite cool for me as i had never build an app. The other members designed the backend of the service we wanted to give to the people to simplify their many cards problem. So in five hours we were ready with the concept for our idea and a mock app to demonstrate and pitch our idea. We still had another twohours left. So, we thought of utilising the time and started playing darts that was beside our area. There were three other teams in the same working area who were wondering what were we upto. They all worked very hard on their ideas, building stuffs and we were playing. This kind a felt weird at the start but once we assured ourself that we had already done what we wanted to do, we continued with the darts. At around 4:30pm we were asked to assemble in the main area with the idea and start pitching to jury members who would visit different teams one by one. Every one liked our idea and they all felt the necessity of such a solution as every one carried many cards with them which they did not like. Some of them were amazed as we had a created a demo app within the time allocated to us.

The entire event brought up new skills in us which we had not explored before. We mingled with unknown peoples. Worked as a team with them, came up with ideas, worked to develop a solution within a short span and pitch the ideas to the jury. This was quite amazing as we had not done such stuffs before but it did not feel like we cannot do these things. At no point were we nervous or doubtful about our idea. I think this confidence and the belief that we had come up with a satisfactory solution helped us win the competition. Though at first it was surprising and hard to believe when we were announced as the winners but later on thinking back on the whole day work we had put up and the kind of solution we provided cemented our claim on the prize. The prize was a Moet and Chandon Champagne which is still with me and we have to decide on a day to celebrate our achievement.

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