crowdsourcing | storytelling | citizenship | social data

Peoples Insights Volume 2, Issue 11

GE NFL Head Health Challenge

Peoples Insights
100+ thinkers and planners within MSLGROUP share and discuss inspiring projects on social data, crowdsourcing, storytelling and citizenship on the MSLGROUP Insights Network. Every week, we pick up one project and curate the conversations around it on the MSLGROUP Insights Network itself but also on the broader social web into a weekly insights report. Every quarter, we compile these insights, along with original research and insights from the MSLGROUP global network, into the Peoples Insights Quarterly Magazine. We have synthesized the insights from our year-long endeavor throughout 2012 to provide foresights for business leaders and changemakers in the ten-part Peoples Insights Annual Report titled Now & Next: Ten Frontiers for the Future of Engagement. In 2013, we continue to track inspiring projects at the intersection of social data, crowdsourcing and storytelling, with a focus on projects that are shaping the Future of Citizenship. Do subscribe to receive our weekly insights reports, quarterly magazines, and annual reports, and do share your tips and comments with us at @PeoplesLab on Twitter.

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Volume 2, Issue 10, January - March, 2013

Future of Citizenship

GE NFL Head Health Challenge

What is the GE NFL Head Health Challenge?

In March 2013, GE and NFL launched the open innovation Head Health Challenge to mobilize innovators around head health: to help diagnose mild traumatic brain injury and improve the safety of athletes, members of the military and society overall. The challenge is a part of the Head Health Initiative a new four-year, $60 million partnership between GE and NFL to research the brain. The challenge launches amidst growing concerns around the safety of professional footballers. CNNs Chris Isidore notes the importance of this initiative not only for the NFL, but also the larger public: Experts say beyond the legal risks, the growing concern about footballs brain injuries could hurt the sports popularity. The threat of brain damage, especially to young players, is prompting a growing number of parents to hold their sons back from playing competitive football People outside of football, including injured members of the military and those with degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons, will also benefit from the joint effort.

How it works
Like most online collaborative social innovation initiatives, the Head Health Challenge follows a contest model in which GE and NFL post the challenge on a platform and invites individuals, groups of individuals or other organizations to submit innovations. NY Times Judy Battista explains the crowdsourcing process: G.E. would run, with an initial investment of $20 million, what it calls an innovation challenge, asking inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists and academicians to submit ideas for how safety equipment could be improved. The most promising ideas would be selected, financed and brought to market, opening the field to ideas that have not sprung from G.E. or helmet manufacturers. The $20 million prize money will be spread over the two parts of the challenge. Part I launched in March 2013 and calls for submissions by July 2013. Part II is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2013 and continue into 2014.

Source: nflgebrainchallenge.com

Forbess Monte Burke explains the initiative: There will be two parts. The first will involve a $40 million research project headed up by GE, designed to better diagnose mild head trauma and predict its outcomes. The second will be two different challenges, led by Under Armour, but accessible to anyone and called the open innovation challenge. The first of those will also involve diagnosis and prognosis. The second will focus on trying to design materials that help protect the head from trauma.

Source: forbes.com

Source: ninesights.com

Proposals are judged according to set of technical criteria, and a panel of external medical experts will advise GE and NFL on the selection of awardees. The Head Health Challenge offers two types of Guided Funding Awards designed to enable collaboration between GE and NFL and the award winners. Awards range from $100,000 to $300,000 and will support development of proof of concept. Awardees will receive the cash in installments the first after agreeing to a guided funding plan with GE and NFL, and the second upon submission of a progress report after six months. This structure instills the need for accountability and protects the interests of GE and NFL, while also providing a structured approach for the award winners. At the completion of the funding and concept development, winners have the opportunity to discuss additional funding or business relationships with GE and NFL.

For instance, since the launch of the GE ecomagination Challenge to find innovations in energy and sustainability, GE has committed $134 million to 22 investments and commercial partnerships, granted $1.1 million in seed funding to early stage companies and entrepreneurs, and acquired one of the businesses that entered the challenge.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF1UCsLn8Fs

Collaborative social innovation at GE

GE has launched several similar open innovation challenges as part of its business strategy, to co-create innovative and sustainable solutions that create shared value. With this model of crowdsourcing, GE is usually looking to invest in or acquire the innovation, or promote it by supporting it with its business scale.
Volume 2, Issue 11, January - March, 2013 Future of Citizenship

In addition to the series of ecomagination challenges around sustainable living, GE has also launched a Healthymagination Challenge to find solutions in the fight against breast cancer.

GE NFL Head Health Challenge

Why open Innovation

New this year is GEs decision to launch the challenge on open innovation platform Nine Sigma, which has a community of 2 million solution providers including businesses, universities, government agencies and innovators. The challenge is also open to innovators beyond the NineSigma community. In a recent TEDx Talk, Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of open innovation platform Innocentive, highlights the benefit of tapping into crowds: What we have created are systems where we build large facilities and large buildings full of the researchers that we think can solve the most important problems. We hire the best in the world to work on those problems, but we all know the fundamental limitation of that kind of system. We couldnt hire all the smartest people in a given field if we wanted to, we cant. On the Head Health Challenge website, GE shares its own experience with crowdsourcing: The power of collaboration between diverse networks cannot be overstated. Our experience has shown us that at GE we dont have all of the solutions, but rather the unique opportunity to seek out great ideas and accelerate their growth. We can leverage our scale and expertise to nurture innovation wherever its seeds grow. GE and NFL play complementary roles within their partnership. In an interview with Fast Company, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell noted the need for a partner to process the proposals and derive solutions: I must get several proposals a day: We have a solution, We have the next best material, Weve got the helmet. We dont have a disciplined system to evaluate and learn from each of those, because its usually not one or the other. Maybe its the combination. Thats the challenge of innovation. And, GE CEO Jeff Immelt pointed out NFLs potential to make brain advancements a public priority: With a lot of research, you really want a catalyst so other people will join in. Very few institutions have the convening power that the NFL does.

Big data and sensors in healthcare

One of the possible areas of innovation in the Head Health Challenge involves the use of sensors as a research tool. As Education Weeks Bryan Toprek notes: In an interview with the Associated Press after Mondays announcement, Goodell mentioned the possibility of players wearing helmets with sensors to help detect hits that could cause concussions. Such helmets are already being used by researchers to determine the severity of hits during youth-football practices, for instance.

Source: bigstory.ap.org

In our previous Peoples Insights reports, we have examined the use of sensors, wearable tech and data to drive behavioral change and help people make better decisions (see our weekly report on the Nike FuelBand. These technologies are now becoming more common as start-ups and big health care companies explore the use of sensors and data as a research tool, to identify new patterns. GigaOMs Ki Mae Heussner notes: In the last couple of months, startups like Brain Sentry and X2 Bio systems, which use sensors to monitor head impact, have attracted funding from investors. Heussner also notes: Already, big companies and emerging startups are leading the way in the smart use of data. At GigaOMs recent Structure: Data conference, Aetnas head of innovation Michael Palmer talked about how the company is using data to prevent diabetes and heart attacks. Startup Asthmapolis (which this week raised $5 million) is using GPS data collected via sensors attached to inhalers to help individuals, physicians and public health officials uncover asthma-related patterns. We cover the rise of data and sensors in our annual reports on Behavior Change Games and Collective Intelligence.

Peoples Lab: Crowdsourcing Innovation & Insights

Peoples Lab is MSLGROUPs proprietary crowdsourcing platform and approach that helps organizations tap into peoples insights for innovation, storytelling and change. The Peoples Lab crowdsourcing platform helps organizations build and nurture public or private, web or mobile, hosted or white label communities around four pre-configured application areas: Expertise Request Network, Innovation Challenge Network, Research & Insights Network and Contest & Activation Network. Our community and gaming features encourage people to share rich content, vote/ comment on other peoples content and collaborate to find innovative solutions. The Peoples Lab crowdsourcing platform and approach forms the core of our distinctive insights and foresight approach, which consists of four elements: organic conversation analysis, MSLGROUPs own insight communities, clientspecific insights communities, and ethnographic deep dives into these communities. The Peoples Insights Quarterly Magazines showcase our capability in crowdsourcing and analyzing insights from conversations and communities.

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