America’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, talking to TechCrunch’s Andrew Keen last month on his three priorities for driving technological innovation in America.

Chopra’s three priorities include:

• Building a “smart infrastructure” for the digital age.

Well, we believe, first and foremost that we need to have a robust baseline infrastructure for the country. And to me that baseline infrastructure isn’t just roadways, railways and runways. But it includes smart infrastructure. 4G network that covers 98 percent of the country. A smart grid, a healthcare IT platform that has doctors and hospitals interconnected. And a learning technologies platform that allows schools and parents and children to communicate and learn from each other and from new resources, number one.

• Establishing “rules of the road” for critical issues like security and intellectual property protection

So as we grapple with issues of security and privacy intellectual property enforcement and the like. We need rules of the road that will comport to the 21st century, internet economy as we see it. And the President’s signature on the patent reform bill last week is just an example of the down payment in that regard.

• Overcoming the “productivity gap” to create digital jobs

We have seen for too long a productivity gap between the potential for how a technology-driven health care system, energy system, education system can operate and what it actually looks like today. McKinsey recently published a study that we can juice up productivity rates in those sectors of US economy that have not seen the kind of growth that they should. That will in turn will create jobs of the future and open up a new chapter of innovation and I’m very hopeful that the president’s strategy for American innovation, available at whitehouse.gov/innovation, answers the call on each of these key challenges that are in front of us.

Other interesting comments focused on how citizens and entrepreneurs can participate with government to improve healthcare, energy management and education:

Well, my number one goal is to inspire them [entrepreneurs] to participate in ways that we can invent a better America. That is, if you’re looking at opportunities to give back, you might be a developer at a company with some spare time and you can help us build a product or service that will improve our healthcare system, improve our energy management, improve our ability to educate our children…

We think the healthcare system is ripe for breakthroughs. We’d love for new entrepreneurs to come into the market..and help us to build that better value based healthcare system…We are increasingly attracting former entrepreneurs in the government using the notion of government as an invitation convener tool more so than  money or new laws that have to be put in place. And there’s a lot we can do together with just the role as government as convener. If you’re entrepreneur and you think there is something you want to work on today.

Chopra on the emergence of an Apps ecosystem through data sharing standards:

I’ve visited schools and families that have had kids learn better by complementing their school system with information technology fueled products and services and the energy space. This is a live issue here in California. Just last month, the California state regulators announced that they would direct three utilities in the state to come together on a common standard for how they will share energy information to customers that want it.

Imagine the apps ecosystem that will emerge. That will take my energy data from my home and convince me when I should turn out the lights and how I should manage my home energy use. Studies show that this could save anywhere from three, four, five, some even say 15 percent on our energy If we were empowered with the right information to make better decisions. So energy, healthcare, and education are top of mine priorities for us and opportunities that we believe will benefit greatly from the entrepreneurial gift system here in Silicon Valley.

(via TechCrunch)

Promoting innovation through prizes and challenges has steadily become an accepted policy throughout many US government departments and agencies over the past few years. Consequently, research into what does and does not work, in the development of such initiatives is increasing important in advancing best practice in this area.

Earlier this year, the Case Foundation together with the White House Domestic Policy Council and Office on Science and Technology Policy, hosted a Promoting Innovation Summit to gather lessons and strategies on the use of prizes, challenges and open grant-making.

Benefits to using prizes and challenges

In his opening remarks, Jeff Zients, the nation’s first Chief Performance Officer, pointed to the transformative power of prizes and challenges:

The productivity boom has transformed private sector performance over the past decade, but the federal government has missed out on this transformation and lags far behind in terms of efficiency and service quality. The American taxpayer deserves more bang for their buck.

Earlier this year, Zients’ office prepared a memo giving guidance to heads of executive departments and agencies on the use of challenges and prizes to promote open government. The memo outlines a number of benefits of such initiatives as tools for promoting open government, innovation, and other national priorities. These include:

• The ability to establish an important goal without having to choose the approach or the team that is most likely to succeed
• Enables sponsors to pay only for results
• Highlights excellence in a particular domain of human endeavor to motivate, inspire and guide others
• Increases the number and diversity of individuals, organizations and teams that are addressing a particular problem or challenge of national or international significance
• Improves the skills of the participants in the competition
• Stimulates private sector investment that is many times greater than the cash value of the prize
• Attracts more interest and attention to a defined program, activity or issue of concern
• Captures the public imagination and changes the public’s perception of what is possible

Challenge.gov

The memo also explained, how the federal government would make available a web-based platform for prizes and challenges. This would be used to support agencies in their execution of prizes:

This platform will provide a forum for agencies to post problems and invite communities of problem solvers to suggest, collaborate on, and deliver solutions. Over the longer term, the General Services Administration (GSA) will also provide government-wide services to share best practices and assist agencies in developing guidelines for issuing challenges. Additionally, GSA will develop, as expeditiously as possible, a contract vehicle to provide agency access to relevant products and services, including technical assistance in structuring and conducting contests to take maximum benefit of the marketplace as they identify and pursue contest initiatives to further the policy objectives of the Federal Government.

This platform – called Challenge.gov – recently went live to federal employees, and the General Services Administration (GSA) will open it to the public later this month. GSA explained the concept behind the site:

Challenge.gov is a new platform that allows federal agencies to post challenges, and at the same time, allows the public to find federal challenges. It’s now open to federal agencies to create challenges or showcase challenges from other platforms.

The platform behind Challenge.gov – ChallengePost – is already used by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Apps For Healthy Kids contest site. This has over 40,000 supporters and around 100 apps worth an estimated are worth over $5 million dollars. In exchange it is making $60k available in prizes.

Do’s and Don’ts

The Promoting Innovation report below is a summary of the lessons and shared learning discussed at the conference, and highlights some of the shining examples of the power and pitfalls of crowdsourcing ideas and innovation.

Whilst prizes and challenges can be powerful tools in driving change, the report highlights some definite Do’s and Don’ts. These include:

• Problems must be clearly defined with measurable outcomes and objective rules.
• Agencies must make sure authority and budgets are in place -  The Office of Management and Budget has recently issued guidance for agencies that are considering using prizes and challenges as a part of their fulfillment of the Open Government Directive.
• Challenges should be open and transparent – Agencies should not underestimate the effort it can take to ensure fairness amongst participants.
• Prizes don’t have to be money – The report notes how ‘a non-monetary prize that creates recognition can stimulate innovation – as can a contest that promises winning ideas will actually be used.’ As part of this, it highlights the President’s SAVE award in which the federal employee submitting the winning idea was given the opportunity to present the idea to President Obama in person, and have their idea included in the 2011 budget.
• Use the public for the right purpose – The are stories of inappropriate ideas rising to the surface of contests as the result of groups gaming a voting system or for other reasons. The UK’s Spending Challenge has been plagued by such issues, although it’s outcome is hailed a success by some.  The report suggests “voting systems often result in the most creative solutions being dismissed. It is not clear that making final evaluations is the right use of Web 2.0 tools when it comes to such contests”.

Challenges to implementation

The Promoting Innovation report, also highlights some of the key challenges agencies can face in introducing prizes and challenges. These include how to handle failure if the results are not what was expected, ensuring internal capacity and skills are available to administer such initiatives and managing the internal change associated with using prizes and awards to further policy goals.

While some of these concerns maybe mitigated through the use of Challenge.gov, McKinsey’s research on prizes highlights some of their limits and cautions against their use versus other philanthropic instruments. They explain that prizes are a good fit if there is a clear and achievable goal, and many solvers willing to absorb the risk of the effort:

Are there limits to the effective use of prizes? Of course! Good ones require clear objectives, a rich field of potential problem solvers, and competitors willing to take risks. Prizes work best when a field isn’t already flooded with funded research and the challenge is more to create a clever application of technology than a technology itself.

A rule of thumb holds that prizes are useful tools for solving problems for which the objective is clear, but the way to achieve it is not. By attracting diverse talent and a range of potential solutions, prizes draw out many possible solutions, many of them unexpected, and steer the effort in directions that established experts might not go but where the solution may nonetheless lie.

Along with this, Zients’ memo outlines many legal issues to be addressed by agencies in structuring prize competitions. These include compliance with Federal Advisory Committee Act legislation, Ethical issues and federal endorsement of products or services, Intellectual Property and many others.

Mindful of these concerns, Tom Kalil, Director White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, explained how agencies have the strong support of the President and OMB to use prizes and challenges as catalysts for innovation and policy formation:

I hope everyone who is here from the Federal Departments and Agencies will come away from this with a renewed sense that this is an important tool, that you will go back and talk to 5-10 of your colleagues to get them excited about this, and that if you run into people who say no you can’t do this, show them the OMB memo, show them that this is in the President’s Innovation Strategy, and know that you have not just permission to do this, but a strong affirmation from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, from the National Economic Council, [and] … from the OMB General Counsel’s Office.

Promoting Innovation Doc

Vivek Kundra on Prizes and Challenges

For more check:

• Summit keynote and panel videos, along with other interviews from the event.
• McKinsey report: And the winner is…Capturing the promise of philanthropic prizes
• Peter Corbett on How to create a civic innovation contest

Over 9,000 proposals have been received in the Your Country, Your Call competition, which closed for entries late last month.

The competition sought to “identify and reward two proposals so big that, when implemented, they can help to secure prosperity and jobs for this and future generations”. It was intended to “rekindle our sense of creativity, our capability to take positive action, and thus generate hope and confidence”.

At Dublin’s Ignite 3 event, Padraig McKeon, Director of Drury Communications and a member of the competition’s steering group, explained what they were looking for in a proposal. The focus should be on ‘new models, types of business or service, or new opportunities within existing industries or service areas’. The Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and the co-operative movement were suggested as representing game-changing ideas exemplifying the radical thinking being sought through the competition.

The two winners will get €100,000 each and a development fund of €500,000 to implement their idea.

The competition has received widespread media coverage over the past few months, and has been advertised extensively in the national press, on radio, television and online. It has been featured on national tv – see RTE’s feature below – and has generated much heated debate in blogs and discussion forums.

As mentioned in the television feature above, not all of the debate around the competition has been positive. Criticism has been expressed online and in the national press surrounding aspects of the competition website, terms and conditions and public funding of the initiative.

Website Controversy

The domain itself (yourcountryyourcall.com) was registered by Allied Irish Bank (one of the largest banks in the country). Padraig McKeon, a member of the competition’s steering group, states in the interview below that this was purely for administrative purposes. Nevertheless, it does seem strange that a financial institution would be registrar of the competition and so closely linked to its inception. Many people feel it ironic the bank would be supporting a competition aimed at economic recovery, when it is so closely associated with the Irish economic collapse, and has had itself to be recapitalised by the government.

Also, Cisco’s involvement in the competition has been questioned. The website was provided free of charge from Cisco and appears to be hosted on their servers – see http://www.cisco.com/web/IRE/yourcountryyourcall/index.html. As the site -  and the Brightidea platform – were provided as a gift, McKeon admits they were constrained by the technology and infrastructure made available to them. ‘The website was provided to us for free by Cisco’ he says, adding that if they had designed the technology themselves they would have done many things differently.

Competition Terms and Conditions

There have also been issues over the apparently contradictory claims relating to Intellectual Property (IP) in the competition’s Terms and Conditions. Who eventually owns the IP of all ideas submitted is unclear. While questions relating to this have been answered by Mr McKeon, it does leave suspicion around the status of ideas put forward on the platform and the involvement of those running the initiative i.e. An Smaoineamh Mór, the company behind the initiative .

Competition funding

What is striking from the interview above is the number of people involved in the project. McKeon mentions (4.12 – 5:28) there are about 60 people working on the project, primarily in the communications area. These range from people involved in advertising, media, television production and social media.

Given the large numbers of people involved in the running of the competition it’s not surprising that the costs are upwards of €2m. Estimates suggest the entire project would have cost €5m if organisers and advertisers hadn’t waived fees (organisers  insist all advertising has been given free).

Simon McGarr and others have raised questions regarding how the funding for the competition has been raised. In response, Padraig McKeon – outlined some of the funding sources for An Smaoineamh Mór Ltd, which is the company running the competition.

A cash fund of just under €2m has been accumulated via donations from 13 parties (companies and individuals) which has been lodged in the accounts of the company, An Smaoineamh Mór, which is a registered charity…

There is no government or political involvement in either setting up or operating the competition. However YCYC is not merely ’suggesting’ it has Government support. The project explicitly has that support. Specifically, the promoters formally presented the project to government late last summer and asked for support in three ways – a contribution to the fund referred above, a request that the competition would have access if it needed it to the services of the state enterprise agencies in the evaluation process (if such help were required) and a commitment that government would engage with the process of developing the two winning proposals, particularly with reference to any legislative issues that might need to be addressed.

It agreed to all three requests – it will be contributing 15% of the fund; there has been no requirement to this point for the involvement of the state agencies and clearly there is no need for development support at this point.

These questions over the finances of the competition were outlined in the Irish Times, with a response from the organisation clarifying a couple of important points:

• The Government agreed to contribute €300,000, but has no direct role in running the competition or determining the outcome. (Full details on this are vague as in March the Minister involved suggested her Department was simply examining this proposal)
• An Smaoineamh Mór Ltd will not exploit or commercialise any intellectual property for its own financial benefit, or the benefit of anyone associated with running the competition who is giving their time on a pro bono basis.

Daragh O’Brien, a blogger on Information Management questioned whether this government money would have been better invested in county enterprise boards and campus incubators with a good track record of establishing new companies:

Perhaps a hybrid of the current competition and the existing structures is what we actually need — but YCYC as a stand-alone event strikes me as a potential waste of taxpayers’ money.

Quantity and Quality of ideas

The competition has generated a significant number of proposals, and this week the organisers have started running advertisements in the national press, thanking people for their participation in the competition. The announcement reads:

To the 177,000 visitors, from 176 countries and for the 9,000 plus proposals, we’d just like to say Thank you

Along with these proposals, there were over 11,000 comments and 35,000 votes submitted by over 20,000 registered users. In the last day alone some 1,800 proposals were submitted.

It is now up to the judging committee to filtering these proposals, and come up with a shortlist of feasible ideas by June.

The current crop of proposals contains a mixture of the good, the bad and the bizarre. Genuine game-changing ideas, however, are difficult to find amongst the rash of proposals that state the obvious e.g. we should cycle more, recycle more, encourage entrepreneurship, set up talent banks and promote Ireland as a green, organic country.

There are some genuine brainwaves, but few that provide a direct path towards ‘helping secure prosperity and jobs’. Many proposals are clever, if quirky, such as teaching children Mandarin or removing 1c and 2c coins from the mint. Some of the oddest ideas include:

• Invite diaspora back to Ireland for a massive homecoming
• Become Europe’s Easter Island
• Setup an Irish theme park – Leprechaun Land

One interesting suggestion that got coverage in the national press surrounded the building of a Monorail. The idea came straight out of a Simpsons episode in which Lyle Lanley suggests that the town construct a monorail. To this, Mayor Quimby replies:

Just tell us your idea and we’ll vote for it.

The amusing idea gathered widespread coverage on discussion boards and was humorously declared the best suggestion to date. Unfortunately, the idea has been removed from the Your Country, Your Call site, but this one idea probably got more young people talking about the competition than any other single advertising initiative during the campaign.

While it’s easy to be amused at some of the suggestions, others note that many are not just stupid, but illegal, and sometimes dangerous.

Interestingly, Padraig McKeon, admits that the quality of entries varied depending on whether they are submitted during the day or late at night. “That’s the nature of crowd sourcing,” he said. “But all we really want is to get 20 good ideas that can be whittled down to a final five and, eventually, two winners.”

Roisin Ingle analyzed the top ideas with the most support and asked experts for their views on whether these ideas could work. She also looked at comments from the public as to their appreciation of the feasibility of the ideas. This analysis makes for interesting reading as to the quality and viability of the top rated proposals. Top five by user votes are listed below:

1). IDEA: HELP SAVE THE HSE AND MILLIONS OF LIVES

John Donnelly proposes that low-dose naltrexone (LDN), a drug used in other countries to treat auto-immune-related illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn’s disease and cancer, should be introduced and prescribed at low levels “by every doctor in Ireland”.

This proposals is not supported by the Irish Times expert, however, it’s received nearly 2,000 votes and hundreds of comments. While it maybe worthy of investigation, its not clear how this proposal would generate jobs or prosperity for the country.

2). IDEA: Ireland West 2020 – A Bright Green Future

The Engineering the West team proposed an Ireland West 2020 partnership which, working from a “sustainable framework”, would unlock the potential of the region in terms of natural and human resources.

The expert view – from Eddie O’Connor, chief executive of Mainstream Renewable Power – is that it is a “great idea”. There are many other ideas along a similar vein, but such themes of promoting renewable energy are already government policy and it’s uncertain how the competition funding resources would make a significant impression in this area.

3). IDEA: Work for Welfare payments

TP2010 proposes to force those in receipt of certain social welfare payments to work in under-resourced areas of government. It’s suggested this would improve workers’ skills and offer an alternative to “becoming depressed sitting at home”.

Brid O’Brien, head of policy with the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed explained how uninformed this idea is: “This idea shows a complete lack of awareness of the work already done by unemployed people within the voluntary and community sector in areas such as community employment schemes”.

Csullie, a commenter on the idea, agrees and says this “Harks back to the days of the workhouse and puts people out of work. Why employ people on a reasonable wage when we can get free slaves from the welfare system.”.

4). IDEA: Steal the UK’s computer games industry

DamienDamien suggests reclassifying developers of computer games as artists and thus exempt them from income tax under current rules.

Dave Gargan, vice-president of engineering with games developer Havok, offers cautious support for the idea but the challenge would be to build critical mass in this area. However, it’s unlikely the government would offer such incentives for one particular industry, over many others.

5). IDEA: An International Healthcare Services Centre (IHSC)

This involves the creation of an International Healthcare Services Centre (IHSC) dealing with exporting healthcare services overseas. The proposer, Joe Dalton, explains how smarter methods of healthcare delivery, such as telehealthcare and independent living systems could help alleviate rising healthcare costs associated with ageing populations and the rise of chronic diseases.

Experts such as Dr Muiris Houston pronounce this as “a brilliant idea,”. The concept is modeled on the Irish Financial Services Centre which was setup in the eighties under legislation designed to boost activity and employment in the Irish economy.

Next steps

Over the coming months, the judging panel will whittle down the entries to 20 semi-finalists and then select five finalists before the winners are announced. The two winning proposals are due to be announced on September 17th.

The judging panel, chaired by former EU Commissioner David Byrne, said it would be looking for ideas that had the potential to transform the economy by creating sustainable jobs and opportunity.

However, no-one is under any illusion that any single idea will have the potential to ‘transform the economy’ or make serious inroads into the country’s serious unemployment crisis. Ireland has the third highest unemployment rate in the OECD, and it’s difficult to see many of the ideas above significantly impacting this.

While it’s easy to criticise many aspects of the competition – and many of the proposals – it has a least generated some enthusiasm and creativity amongst the public for new ideas to get the country ‘back on its feet’.

Earlier this month, the Lisbon Council hosted the 2010 Innovation Summit in Brussels. The event focused on the changing nature of Innovation within the EU, and how it needs to become more open, collaborative and  interdisciplinary.

Some memorable quotes from the Panel – which included representatives from the EU, Google, OECD and Lisbon Council – include:

Andrew Wyckoff, Director – Science, Technology and Industry, OECD:

Governments sit on huge repositories of data, much of which they collect through their normal administrative functions, but some of which they’re paying for. Clinical trails…R&D that doesn’t make any progress; Failures. That’s useful information that should be put out into knowledge networks and markets…We need new markets for knowledge.

Martin Schuurmans, Chairman, European Institute of Innovation and Technology noted:

In addition to open innovation, a structural change in Europe’s innovation ecosystem also requires the full integration of the knowledge triangle; that is of higher education, research and business/innovation. To unleash Europe’s innovation potential, borders between academia and business, between teaching and research must be broken and made largely subordinate to entrepreneurship, which should be both the glue and the driver to success in innovation within the knowledge triangle

Rian Liebenberg, Engineering Director, Google:

…New Innovations face the battle of new versus old. Enabling innovations that could disrupt old ways of doing things to be successful, and not burdened by restrictive covenants..is not going to move us forward and make things better.

Along with this he outlined his ideas for Innovation policy as: Putting the consumer first; Removing barriers to innovation; Ensuring diversity in the hiring process and Encouraging risk taking for large companies.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinnn, called on Europe to step up its innovation performance, outlining how transformative changes should be used to address “grand challenges”. She went on to say:

We need to connect up and speed up innovation along the whole policy chain, from research to retail.

We are seeing the emergence of a new type of business, which co-innovates with its customers and even its competitors, and which, rather than relying solely on its own employees, puts some of its data into the public realm, to leverage the talents and insights of the global research community.

[...] The secret to success now lies in collaboration across borders and cultures. That is why we must have a single, unified research area in Europe, within which researchers and knowledge can move around freely.

Innovation is no longer the preserve of a select elite. It is needed in every walk of life…We are all innovators now – and the task ahead is to build, not just the “i-conomy”, but a cohesive and prosperous “i-society.”

European Innovation at a Crossroads

The event was underpinned by the launch of a new report Wikinomics and the Era of Openness: European Innovation at a Crossroads. The report author, Anthony D. Williams is co-author of Wikinomics, and a senior fellow at the Lisbon Council explained how collaboration was an integral aspect of the innovation process.

We’re in a period now where all institutions in a society need to be innovative. The key source of innovation today is new forms of collaboration, where institutions can reach out and tap into new sources of skills and capabilities by collaborating with people in their broader ecosystem…

Governments collaborating with citizens and non-profit organisations…it’s these collaborative models that will inevitably drive new forms of innovation and value creation in every institution…

What we need today are much more customised, interactive and collaborative public services, services where citizens themselves actually get engaged in not just designing the service, but in cases even delivering the services. Citizens become part of the value creation process.

Governments need to be more transparent. They need to be more collaborative. They need to engage with citizens and they need to look for new ideas, new innovations. Not just within the confines of the bureaucracy, but in the broader society in which they are a part.

The report examines the economic challenges facing Europe and demonstrates how Europe can benefit from increasing knowledge sharing, raising creativity and encouraging social innovation.

The key findings of the study include:

• Not all innovation occurs in laboratories; simply raising R&D spending (though important) is not enough to make Europe a global innovation leader. A new paradigm — openness — is replacing the old closed innovation systems, based on rigid protection of patents and other IP laws. The strength of openness is that it brings the intellectual and creative capacities of more and more people to bear on complex problems and problem solving.
• Web 2.0 and mass collaboration will reshape the nature of education, science and government. And, they could provide solutions to complex problems ranging from climate change to energy security
• Wherever possible, companies, countries and individuals should embrace open standards as a way of encouraging innovation…For example, an “open source” energy grid could introduce new innovation to an outmoded sector and bring greater consumer awareness and a sense of community to making ordinary household and business decisions that reduce carbon footprints.
• Europe is uniquely placed to thrive in this new era of “open” innovation; research excellence and cultural diversity are huge assets, so long as countries look beyond national borders and draw more knowledge from global and intra-national innovation webs
• Europe should require 80% of all publicly funded research to be available in open source journals after a short, six-month embargo under the Eighth Framework Programme, which is due to be adopted in 2014.

Role of Government

Speaking of government’s role in the Innovation process the report says (p25/26):

The first wave of digitally-enabled “e-government” strategies delivered some important benefits. It made government information and services more accessible to citizens while creating administrative and operational efficiencies. But too many of these initiatives simply paved the cow paths – that is, they focused on automating existing processes and moving existing government services online. This next wave of innovation presents an historic occasion to fundamentally redesign how government operates, how and what the public sector provides, and ultimately, how governments interact and engage with their citizens. Digital citizens increasingly expect to be partners in governance, not bystanders. It is time governments at all levels abandon their monopoly over the policy process in favour of participatory models that invite input – and ownership – at all stages of development, from problem definition and analysis, to identifying strategic options and making decisions. This goes far beyond the Internet consultations that for instance the European Commission occasionally conducts, or the blog of a government official. Instead, it is a process of opening up processes that have hitherto been closed and making governance and government more transparent, more accountable and more understandable.

European leaders can and must rise to these challenges. Government will either play an active and positive role in its own transformation, or change will happen to it. The transformation process is at the same time exhilarating and painful, but the price of inaction would be even worse: a lost opportunity for government to redefine its role in society and help launch a new era of participatory European governance.

The Market is the Message

Various policy ideas above are already outlined by different countries throughout the Union. However, the OECD noted that there is a need for an “upgrade” in policies for Innovation. This update should focus on embracing more than just R&D, but the bundling of associated services, software and “network” capital. Along with this collaborative / open models must be embraced (e.g. the release of open government data for the development of government as a platform applications), both between scientists, business and governments.

In his address, Martin Schuurmans spoke about how Entrepreneurship was ‘key’ – and often times more important than R&D – to developing new products and creating employment. As such, the EU should take the lead with initiatives similar to that of the Obama Administration, but particularly a focus on promoting Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship. A culture and environment that promotes risk taking and allows companies to be internationally competitive in a global exchange of ideas and innovation is critical. Developing these competitive markets through which innovations can diffuse and scale is perhaps more important than increasing spending on R&D.

About the Lisbon Council

The Lisbon Council is a European think tank and policy network “committed to defining and articulating a mature strategy for managing current and future challenges.” It seeks strategies based on inclusion, opportunity and sustainability that will make the benefits of modernisation available to all our citizens.

Founded in 2003, the Lisbon Council is incorporated in Belgium as an independent, non-profit and non-partisan association.

For more see www.lisboncouncil.net and or @lisboncouncil.

Earlier this week, President Mary McAleese launched a search to find two “game-changing” ideas that will help secure prosperity and jobs for Ireland.

The initiative comes in the form of a competition – Your Country, Your Call – that is offering two winners a cash prize of €100,000 each and up to €500,000 for implementation of their ideas.

The initiative describes itself as “a competition to ignite imaginations and inspire thinking.”

The goal is to pick two truly transformational proposals so big that, when implemented, could secure prosperity and jobs for Ireland. Proposals that could help change the way we do things, allow businesses to grow, employment to be created and prosperity to flourish.

[...] Your Country, Your Call is all about Ireland. It’s about helping to create sustainable employment and prosperity, whilst at the same time generating hope, confidence, and positive thinking.

Economic gloom

On launching the initiative President McAleese said the mood of the country was currently one of pessimism and deep disappointment. Unemployment in Ireland currently stands at nearly 13%, the highest in more than 15 years. This, along with a recent budget of severe cuts to public services, has led to deep public anger and resentment with the state of the economy.

The President, however, said Ireland had “formidable brain power” and, if utilised, the country could go forward again:

We need fresh thinking and action to shake off these doldrums and get us into forward gear. Ireland has formidable brainpower and a determination forged and tested over many generations. Your Country, Your Call is a challenge to this generation to come up with workable proposals capable of helping to put Ireland back firmly on its two feet.

[...] It is hoped that Your Country, Your Call will become a “mind meitheal,” which will generate interest and debate in families, workplaces, clubs, organisations, institutions, schools, colleges, communities, promoting positive thinking, faith hope and confidence in our country’s future.

[...] Your Country, Your Call is essentially an act of faith in our brain-power and our ability to create an exciting and realizable landscape of opportunity for our country and our people. It is now officially open for your proposals. So get talking, thinking and proposing.

President McAleese, who is patron of the initiative, said the winning projects might involve new ways of doing everyday things or might identify a completely new industry or service. They could be in any area, from education and sport to science and tourism, from agriculture and religion to arts and industry.

Process

Those interested have until April 30th to lodge their idea through the website YourCountryYourCall.

The thousands of ideas expected will be sifted throughout the summer. These will be distilled down to the 20 most viable which will be considered at the semi-final stage of the competition. These finalists will be assigned a coach for a 6-week period, who will work to help them develop their proposals.

Following the 6 week coaching period, each semi-finalist will be interviewed. Out of these interviews 5 finalists will be chosen to participate in a two-day event that will conclude with awards being presented by President McAleese.

Ideas

In the first two days after the site was launched it received over 40,000 hits. More than 1,700 users have registered, submitting some 650 ideas, nearly 900 comments and over 2,600 votes. The current most popular idea, with over 230 votes,  surrounds the creation of a Talent Tank where businesses can get in touch with people who have the skills they need and will work for free to showcase their talents.

Other ideas which have received popular support include: how the Health service can save money, the creation of an Irish sea Tunnel and the development of the railways. Some ideas, however, such as relocating the Vatican to Cavan look less certain of achieving popular support.

Competition backing

The competition is being governed by a charity, An Smaoineamh Mór, who will oversee the idea process and also coordinate the development of the two winning ideas.

The initiative is being largely supported by “corporate entities” and a “small amount” from government. An Smaoineamh Mór, chairman Dr Laurence Crowley said the identity of those who are providing the funds – capped at €150,000 – would be revealed in due course, but that €2 million of the estimated €2.5m required had already been secured.

Cisco and other IT companies based in Ireland are expected to be supporters of the imitative.

Get Thinking!

A television advertising campaign began this weekend to encourage people all over Ireland to enter the competition. It features prominent Irish personalities such as singer Christy Moore, writer Cecelia Ahern and broadcaster Olivia O’Leary.

Summary

While the use of Idea platforms has been widely used within corporations and other countries – witness the Open Government movement in the US – such a campaign soliciting ideas from citizens is relatively new in Ireland. While we’ve had the Ideas Campaign, it did not offer a prize fund, nor significant development opportunities for proposals.

The fact that this initiative has an engaged and powerful patron, along with significant financial resources, suggests it will be able to engage people in a way other requests for ideas on economic renewal have not.

While the process conforms to suggestions from experts on how to solicit ideas and engage the public, more transparency is needed on how ideas will be brought forward to solutions. Innovation platforms need to have 3 distinct phases. Citizen involvement in each phase – other than in the Participation stage – is not outlined, nor is the relevance of the voting mechanism i.e. we don’t know if the ideas with the highest number of votes automatically go through to the semi-finals, or if there is a judging panel involved. Having citizen involvement throughout the engagement and implementation phases could be a significant tool in successfully implementing the winning ideas.

Overall the initiative is a welcome and positive development. I’ve already submitted an idea and hope to help develop others on the site. The competition is not just restricted to Irish people, but is open to anyone who has suggestions on how to create sustainable employment and prosperity for Ireland.

It’s time to get thinking. Over to you – Is leatsa e.

For more check:

• Your Country Your Call
• @yrcountryyrcall
• Your Country Your Call on YouTube
• Irish Times news report
• Dr. Martin McAleese describing the initiative on RTE’s Late Late Show (1:18:20 – 1:21:30)