The past two weeks have been giant for Open Innovation.
One particular highlight was Armadillo Aerospace in Texas, who twice successfully flew a Scorpius lunar lander rocket in a two hour time frame on September 12, officially qualifying them for the top prize (which could be worth a cool $1 million) in the NASA Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Requiring the simulation of such tasks as landing on, refueling on and lifting off from the moon, they had to fly horizontally from the launch pad to another pad 50 meters away for at least 3 minutes, then land on a simulated moon surface, then takeoff and fly back to the launch pad.
Even more exciting developments in the field include Netflix, who awarded a $1 million prize to the first group or individual who submitted an algorithm to improve their movie recommendation system by 10% or more. Coming out on top was a team called "Bellkor's Pragmatic Chaos," a 7-person team who met in person for the first time at breakfast the day the prize was awarded. The final stages of the competition spanning nearly three years are worthy of a movie, with teams combining and splitting apart, with the winning team submitting their answer just 24 minutes before another team. Netflix promptly announced their next $1 million prize will be awarded in two $500K payments to the team with the most progress at 6 and 12 months.
Philips announced they've submitted an entry to the US Department of Energy's $10 million L Prize for a significantly more efficient 60 watt bulb, the most popular bulb in America. Amost half of the billion light bulbs sold in America each year are 60 watt incandescent bulbs, so a sustainable solution would have a huge impact. You can read more in this New York Times article.
As you can see, the last two weeks have indeed seen huge acheivements in open innovation. So much so, in fact, that the Wall Street Journal called the awarding of the Netflix Prize a "Turning Point" in Open Innovation.
I agree.
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