What is an Innovation Challenge?
Innovation Challenges are crowdsourcing competitions frequently used by organizations to engage innovators in the identification of concepts, technologies and solutions that support activity in priority areas, spur scientific or technological breakthroughs, or address specific social issues or problems.
Regardless of purpose or desired output, incentive-based competition enables sponsoring organizations to engage with a broad range of innovators. This democratization of innovation exposes the problem space to a more diverse set of skills, experiences and perspectives than typically available in other more traditional approaches.
PROCESS
The MaRS Innovation Challenge Process
The MaRS Innovation Challenge process involves 6 fundamental steps:
Discovery
Primary/secondary research
Scoping
Stakeholder/ecosystem engagement
Design
Resources and infrastructure development
Delivery
Challenge management and outreach
Judging
Finalist/winner selection
Post Challenge Activities
Support in solution development, implementation, or scaling
Stakeholders
Who do Innovation Challenges involve?
Sponsors
An organization, or group of organizations, looking to solve an issue.
Participants
Innovative individuals and organizations (including for-profit, not-for-profit, academic, and public institutions) who participate in an innovation challenge.
Judges
Subject matter experts who select the innovation challenge finalists and winner(s).
Designers
Experts who design innovation challenges.
Connect with us
Questions about how to get involved? Interested in
running your own challenge?