Open Design and Knowledge Sharing as Innovation Strategy

Nokia and Intel started experimenting with Open Source Hardware. General Electrics and BMW partner with Techshop to embrace the Maker Movement. MIT and the Gatsby Foundation tap into the power of citizen (neuro)science with EyeWire as does the University of California, Berkeley, with the Stardust@home project in astronomy.

At June 4th, Patricia Wolf from CreaLab and Peter Troxler from Hogeschool Rotterdam (NL) facilitated at the R&D Management Conference in Stuttgart a workshop where participants discussed the question  «How can industry effectively employ open source and citizen science in their innovation strategies?» The workshop presented this latest trend in R&D innovation management and discussed the reasons and approaches for companies to break out of the constraints of intellectual property protection regimes and to reap the potentials of open knowledge sharing for faster innovation that pays off for the bottom line and in terms of social responsibility.

Pictures: CC BY-NC-ND. The R&D Management Conference 2014, Fraunhofer IAO. Creator: Ludmilla Parsyak.