Open Innovation

Many organizations have adopted open innovation as an important approach.

Companies often adopt open innovation to access a wider pool of ideas and expertise, reduce costs, mitigate risks, and gain a competitive advantage by leveraging wide-ranging perspectives.

Typically, these activities include corporate funded or managed accelerators, and prizes and competitions sponsored or funded by companies and the public sector.

The public sector, such as federal and state agencies, typically fund activities to give innovators resources and exposure in order to attract private funding and to find commercial opportunities.

ICatalysts has 20 years of experience organizing, managing and supporting competitions, technology development and tech transfer projects funded by the private and public sectors. Our competition and prize experience includes more than 20 nationwide and global prizes and competitions and prizes, a manufacturing accelerator, a robotics competition, four solar incubators, four cycles of Small Business Innovative Research Programs (SBIR), and prizes on Wave Energy, Micro-batteries, Carbon Capture and Transportation, Energy Storage, Grid Technologies, Grid Software, Semi-Conductors, Geothermal Technologies, Water Power Technologies, and several projects to help tech accelerators develop.

Organizations who have funded our challenges and accelerators include Amazon, Bank of Africa, Buckeye Partners, Coupong, Gates Foundation, Intel, Microsoft, the State of California, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the US Department of Energy and the US State Department.

Since 2013, we have partnered with the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship as part of the World’s largest graduate student startup competition to train and connect almost 500 startups created in the top university labs worldwide with more than 80 companies and agencies including many of America’s largest companies. Overall, these startups have raised over $6B. Other university and corporate collaborations we have supported have been prizes and competitions at Columbia University, the Indian School of Business, NYU, Princeton, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan and the University of Washington.

To support engagements, we tap our database of 35,000+ contacts nationwide working in technology and innovation in all sectors and industries. These contacts are at startups and small businesses, large and medium-sized companies, universities, angel, VC and corporate investors, accelerators and incubators, and the public sector (e.g., cities, states, federal government).

To help meet specific client needs, we often tap our network of experts including industry experts, technologists and university professors.

Email us if you are interested in learning more about our services

Companies often adopt open innovation to access a wider pool of ideas and expertise, reduce costs, mitigate risks, and gain a competitive advantage by leveraging wide-ranging perspectives.

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