Technological Innovation and Social Change

McKinsey Report on Prizes and Innovation « MIT IDEAS GLOBAL CHALLENGE
the report is downloadable at http://www.mckinsey.com/App_Media/Reports/SSO/And_the_winner_is.pdf
The MIT summary:
offers a view of the current landscape of prizes and competitions for innovation and provides good insight in good practice. To follow are some notes.

Prizes to incentivize innovation are going through a renaissance - they’re calling these “philanthropic prizes.” Interestingly, find that, “prizes are a unique and powerful tool that should be in the basic toolkit of many of today’s philanthropists.” Some benefits of the “prize inducement” model are:

• Identify new levels of excellence
• Encourage specific innovations
• Change wider perceptions
• Improve performance of communities of problem solvers
• Build the skills of individuals
• Mobilize new talent and capital

Some promising practices identified in the report include:

• Philanthropist matching a clear goal with a large group of potential problem solvers who are willing to absorb some risk.
• Start with a clearly define aspiration for society benefit which can be translated into prize objectives that are specific, motivational, actionable, results-focused and time bound.
• A good prize will invest significant resources into its design, specifying the competitor pool, rules and award attributes.
• An effective prize process is at least as important as the prize design, which will attract candidates, manage the competition, celebrate winners, and publicize the effort.
• A good sponsor will invest significant resources in post-prize activities that convert the awards result into long-term societal benefits.