InnoCentive and Lumina Foundation Announce Winner of First Innovation Challenge

InnoCentive is now part of Wazoku

Indianapolis, IN – Today, InnoCentive, Inc. and Lumina Foundation announced the winner of the Design of Student-centric Websites for Open-Enrollment Colleges and Institutions Challenge.

$20,000 was awarded to Andrew Ambrosino from North Chelmsford, Mass., for his open-enrollment website prototype titled “Aprenda.” Ambrosino, a student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, was one of 762 solvers who attempted to design a student-centric interface.

“Aprenda” is a software prototype that would make it easy for students to designate their career goals, and then map out steps to achieving those goals. Students could use “Aprenda” before and during their studies to construct a visual path that would lead them to the job they want and help them understand how all of the pieces of their education work together.

“Aprenda” is innovative because it allows students to combine all aspects of learning in one place. For instance, a student using “Aprenda” could track balances due, project the cost of total learning time, compare majors and institutions, see how curriculum requirements stack, and also network to find opportunities for workplace learning.

By crowdsourcing education problems to a global community of nearly 300,000 diverse problem solvers, Lumina seeks to leverage innovative methods and harness global creative talent to achieve its goal of increasing postsecondary degree attainment in the United States. The Foundation was pleased that, by casting this wide net, it was able to attract students to the problem-solving process. This is an example of social value creation for students, by students, via open innovation.

“Students should help drive student-centered innovation,” said Lumina’s Vice President of Communications and Innovation Kiko Suarez. “This is an example of social value creation for students, by students, via open innovation.”

To learn more about Lumina’s open innovation challenges, visit https://www.innocentive.com/pavilion/lumina.

About Lumina Foundation
 

Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees, certificates and other credentials to 60 percent by 2025. Lumina’s outcomes-based approach focuses on helping to design and build an accessible, responsive and accountable higher education system while fostering a national sense of urgency for action to achieve Goal 2025. Additional details on Lumina’s student-centered design can be found at nextgenhub.org.

About InnoCentive
 

InnoCentive is the global leader in crowdsourcing innovation problems to the world’s smartest people who compete to provide ideas and solutions to important business, social, policy, scientific, and technical challenges. Our global network of millions of problem solvers, proven challenge methodology, and cloud-based technology combine to help our clients transform their economics of innovation through rapid solution delivery and the development of sustainable open innovation programs. For more than a decade, leading organizations such as AARP Foundation, Air Force Research Labs, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly & Company, EMC Corporation, NASA, Nature Publishing Group, Procter & Gamble, Scientific American, Syngenta, The Economist, Thomson Reuters, and several government agencies in the U.S. and Europe have partnered with InnoCentive to rapidly generate innovative new ideas and solve problems faster, more cost effectively, and with less risk than ever before. For more information, visit www.innocentive.com, email info@innocentive.com, or call 1-855-CROWDNOW (U.S.) or +44 (0) 207 224 0110 (International).

Media Contacts:

Lucia Anderson
Lumina Foundation
317-951-5316
landerson@luminafoundation.org

Steve Bonadio
InnoCentive, Inc.
978-482-3300
press@innocentive.com