Rockefeller / InnoCentive deal fosters open innovation

The Rockefeller Foundation will pay the fees for selected non-profits to use InnoCentive to solve problems in the developing world.  From yesterday's announcement:

The Rockefeller Foundation and InnoCentive today announced that the Foundation will create a non-profit area on InnoCentive's global scientific network, specifically designed to spur science and technology solutions to pressing development problems....

This "open innovation model," which InnoCentive has pioneered in the "for-profit" arena using challenges posed by R&D-focused companies, will now be turned, for the first time, toward technological problems faced by poor or vulnerable people in the developing world. The new agreement is the first step in a larger Rockefeller Foundation initiative aimed at promoting innovation in a manner that spurs development, and that specifically increases access to proven innovation models for work on behalf of poor or vulnerable populations around the world....

Under the agreement announced today, The Rockefeller Foundation will select non-profit entities and others with charitable intent eligible to use the InnoCentive platform under preferred conditions, and will pay access, posting and service fees on their behalf to InnoCentive, as well as challenge awards to those researchers solving the technology problems the non-profits pose....