The OZ Innovation Challenge Process

Mtech Ventures, Association of University Research Parks and the Center for Accelerating Innovation are prototyping an open innovation challenge process to attract promising innovations, concepts and business plans that can resolve significant OZ problems and needs. A special focus will be on entrepreneurs who are either women; minorities; socially and economically disadvantaged.  The related goal is to implement and scale-up selected successful solutions by integrating investments with OZ funds, businesses, foundations, non-profits, State/local agencies and individuals. [1]

The initial effort is focusing on OZ needs in the Baltimore-Washington DC corridor.

The Challenge Process

1. Convene OZ Community Roundtables to prioritize critical needs in economic development, entrepreneurship, workforce skills and infrastructure. The first Roundtable was held February 14 in College Park, MD with 40 stakeholders

2 .Integrate these needs into OZ Innovation Challenges and seek solutions from multiple local, business, university, governmental and entrepreneurial channels.   

4. Evaluate merits of proposed solutions in terms of deployment factors, investment requirements, community impact and scalability.  

5. Deliver technical, management, marketing, financial, partnering expertise to selected solutions.

6. Provide a reporting framework to track services, milestones, investments and outcomes. 

[1] An example is an OZ  project eligible for the  Federal  Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program, the largest non-equity capital pool aimed at early stage and commercially viable products and services.