{
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    "title" : "Innovation Through Market Stimulation |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Innovation Through Market Stimulation",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2014/12/18/innovation-through-market-stimulation/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Innovation Through Market Stimulation","summary" : "Crowdsourcing and prize competitions can take many forms, which makes them a great open innovation tool. A large group of federal agencies and other partners has launched a competition that also involves a secondary crowdsourcing element. The Nutrient Sensor Challenge is a market stimulation prize competition to accelerate","date" : "2014-12-18T11:10:30-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"dustin-renwick" : "Dustin Renwick"},"topics" : {
        
            "challenges-and-prize-competitions" : "Challenges and prize competitions",
            "crowdsourcing-and-citizen-science" : "Crowdsourcing and citizen science"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2014-12-18-innovation-through-market-stimulation.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2014/12/2014-12-18-innovation-through-market-stimulation.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2014/12/2014-12-18-innovation-through-market-stimulation.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2014/12/2014-12-18-innovation-through-market-stimulation.md","slug" : "innovation-through-market-stimulation","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2014/12/18/innovation-through-market-stimulation/","content" :"\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2014/12/250-x-250-nutrient-sensor-challenge-logo.jpg\"\n    alt=\"Nutrient Sensor Challenge logo\"/\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\nCrowdsourcing and prize competitions can take many forms, which makes them a great open innovation tool. A large group of federal agencies and other partners has launched a competition that also involves a secondary crowdsourcing element.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ca href=\"http://www.nutrients-challenge.org/\"\u003eNutrient Sensor Challenge\u003c/a\u003e is a market stimulation prize competition to accelerate the development of affordable, accurate, and reliable sensors for measuring nutrient levels in water.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNutrients are a natural part of ecosystems, but too much nitrogen and phosphorus causes big problems: harmful algal blooms can make pets and children sick, green water can shut down recreation, and species kills can result from impaired water conditions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eImproved sensors will help to understand how nutrients move through the environment and help to measure nutrient levels in waterways with more accuracy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut this is not a typical prize competition, where the winners get a check at the end for hitting specific criteria. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/12/17/innovating-protect-our-waterways\"\u003eChallenging Nutrients Coalition\u003c/a\u003e—a broad group of federal agencies working with states, universities, and private sector organizations—has worked to define the market, which will be the big payoff for winners.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the Nutrient Sensor Challenge, the top developers will have the best shot at the people who will buy and use those sensors to help track nutrients. Sensor users range from international groups to U.S. federal agencies to local watershed alliances.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe water sensor market is fractured—one of the biggest barriers to innovation identified in a \u003ca href=\"https://woods.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/files/path_to_water_innovation_thompson_paper_final.pdf\"\u003ediscussion paper released by the Brookings Institution and Stanford University\u003c/a\u003e. The Nutrient Sensor Challenge represents one of the best efforts to quantify and understand the market. We’ve done good work so far, but gaps remain. And that’s where targeted crowdsourcing comes into play.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe think the crowd can help this effort. We want input from sensor users—just how big is the sensor market in your state? The United States? The world?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.nutrients-challenge.org/\"\u003eStay tuned for more information\u003c/a\u003e on how you can get involved!\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDustin Renwick\u003c/strong\u003e works in conjunction with the \u003ca href=\"http://www2.epa.gov/innovation\"\u003eInnovation Team\u003c/a\u003e in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Office of Research and Development. The opinions expressed here are the author’s and do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}