{"id":29094,"date":"2018-11-13T19:02:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T00:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/expanding-open-innovation-at-nasa\/"},"modified":"2018-11-13T19:02:49","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T00:02:49","slug":"expanding-open-innovation-at-nasa","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/expanding-open-innovation-at-nasa\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Open Innovation at NASA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The importance of Open Innovation at NASA<\/strong><\/p>\n

In its 60 years of history, the National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA) has been able to attract the most accomplished researchers in the world to come up with innovative solutions and intellectual property that would give the USA a technological edge.<\/p>\n

However, even a company with the most impressive scientists can benefit from the fresh perspectives and creativity that Open Innovation offers. NASA recognised \u201cthe power of public ingenuity in solving tough problems\u201d[1]<\/a>. Figure 1 exemplifies the additional software developer expertise that NASA could have access to by taking part in Open Innovation platforms, such as Topcoder:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Figure 1: Distribution of number of people and expertise, Topcoder vs. NASA\u00a0[5]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>Therefore, NASA launched the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) in 2011\u00a0[2]<\/a>. Through its challenges<\/em>, NASA started encouraging individuals, private or public organisations to try to solve problems in exchange for a financial prize (e.g., $1 million for ideas on how to turn carbon dioxide into glucose as part of Mars mission\u00a0[3]<\/a>). Especially in the low-Earth orbit (LEO), this \u201chas fundamentally changed NASA’s role from an orchestrating\/directing role, to a more \u2018facilitating\u2019 one\u201d[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These challenges<\/em> have proved to deliver fast solutions\u00a0[6]<\/a> with the advantage of only paying for success\u00a0[7]<\/a>. The following overview (Figure 2) shows the very positive results of the challenges since the NASA Open Innovation Service (NOIS) contract launch. 98% of the challenges resulted in cost and 90% in time savings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Figure 2: Challenge Results Dashboard\u00a0[5]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>Today, these\u00a0challenges<\/em> are still a small part of NASA\u2019s research processes. However, given the positive results of the challenges so far, I really believe that Open Innovation will become a key driver of NASA\u2019s research strategies in the next years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Expanding Open Innovation approaches<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the short term, NASA will keep encouraging people to work on its challenges<\/em> (here is a list of current challenges: https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/offices\/coeci\/challenges\/open<\/a> ). The company is expanding this approach to access a broader user base using different platforms, such as (see Figure 3 for full platform landscape):<\/p>\n