Organizations Crowdsource Problems, Solutions and Funding for First Time; InnoCentive Posts 1,000th Challenge in New GlobalGiveback Innovation Challenge Set
WALTHAM, MA–(Marketwire - January 27, 2010) - InnoCentive, Inc., the world leader in open innovation, today announced that it is partnering with GlobalGiving and the Rockefeller Foundation to help several GlobalGiving partner organizations find solutions to dire water-related problems facing their local communities. For the first time, these organizations have combined efforts to crowdsource not only Challenge questions and their solutions, but also the funding to implement the winning solutions. As a part of this new GlobalGiveback Innovation Challenge Set, InnoCentive also achieved its 1,000th Challenge posting, a significant milestone.
According to a 2008 UNICEF/World Health Organization report, 884 million people, or one in eight, lack access to safe water supplies. The WHO reports that over 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease, and less than 1 percent of the world’s fresh water is readily accessible for direct human use.
Through the partnership, GlobalGiving generated a pool of challenge submissions by crowdsourcing ideas from their 800 project leaders representing 80 countries. Most of the pressing issues that met the selection criteria were water-related; GlobalGiving selected four final Challenges to move forward into the post phase with Innocentive.
