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The Future of Work Powered by Wazoku

The world of work is changing. Wazoku is at the forefront.

In April 2022, The Center for the Transformation of Work (CTW) awarded Wazoku the prestigious ‘Trusted Platform Provider’ certification. We were the first company in the world to achieve this important open talent industry accreditation.

The accreditation and its badge represents the work that we do for our Solvers, our customers, and for the future of work. At Wazoku, we strive to enable ways of working that are more efficient, more sustainable, and more equitable.

Whether through democratizing a company’s problem-solving across its employees, or by offering our Solvers the opportunity to earn cash prizes by submitting ideas to the world’s biggest Challenges, we enable people to change the world, one idea at a time.

We know that the future of work has to be built, not found.

The CTW believes that all platform organizations, whether they are talent marketplaces or crowdsourcing providers, should achieve a level of service excellence and transparency to earn the trust of enterprise clients and the valued talent that powers their offerings. We’re honored for Wazoku to be our first accredited platform.

John Healy
Managing Partner at the Center for the Transformation of Work

How is Wazoku shaping the future of open talent?

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Partnering with companies from many industries

Our Wazoku Crowd of Solvers consist of millions of problem solvers, each with their own expertise and interests. By partnering with diverse businesses, we can extend our Challenge offerings.
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Engaging with a student crowd

Bridging the gaps between students and industry, we partnered with JISC to give students the chance to stand out, gain experience, and get rewarded with cash prizes and internship positions. Students regularly join our other Challenges to develop their skills and add value to businesses while studying.
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Challenge types that work for you

With types that range from prototyping to a simple written idea, our Challenge types enable more Solvers to have a better chance at changing the world.

We don’t want to do science just like science has already been done before… My advisor and I wanted to think about the intersections of STEM with education, policy, innovation, and inclusion.

Hannah Safford
Winner of Detecting Pathogens in Water Challenge while undergoing her PhD

Why is the world of work changing?

World events over the last few years, coupled with emerging tech and cultural shifts, have meant that many companies are re-evaluating the ways that they work. Adding open talent to your toolkit provides you with a way to accelerate your outcomes. There is huge potential in using open talent:

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The opportunity

The growth in the knowledge economy means that you’re never going to be able to employ all the world’s smartest people. Using open talent gives you insights from the ‘long tail’ of experts outside your organization.

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Projects and ‘taskification’ shift

Projects are a specific and measurable way of parcelling work: they also serve to implement the greatest change and typically have the most value for companies.

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Burnout

An increase in workload is the highest priority problem for knowledge workers – 4x the amount of the next issue.

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Pay for solutions, not time

Using open talent models with specific outcomes outlined is a great way to lift the burden from internal teams.

How have we done it already?

At Wazoku, we know that our Solver community provides a critical value-add to any business, whether it’s through solving a 20-year oil spill issue or by supercharging NASA’s research initiatives when it needed a new perspective. Additionally, the Wazoku Platform is used by businesses across the globe for idea management and innovation projects. Waitrose use the platform to power a Partner Ideas scheme, which leverages the insights of employees and has resulted in £3.5m in realized savings for the organization.

Through creative thinking and open talent, you can increase your chances to turn money spent into concrete results.

Tim Sanders
VP of Client Strategy at Upwork

Wazoku’s Innovation_360 offering is secure and integrated with the enterprise stack, so you can be sure that any collaboration is safe from prying eyes. If you’re working with our Wazoku Crowd, open innovation solution rights are protected by clearly-defined IP and usage rules. The efficiency of integrating open talent into traditional structures can be seen in our results from the last 20 years.

Solvers treading new ground for global businesses

What do nine Challenges, run by nine different global organizations, in topics as varying as sustainability, pharmaceuticals, and beauty have in common?

They were all solved by the same person.

Martin G. may be one of the most prolific Solvers in the Wazoku Crowd, but he also represents the best of our community of problem solvers. He has an insatiable curiosity, a wealth of experience, and a can-do attitude to help our Seeker organizations fix their biggest problems and Challenges.

It was absolutely by chance I came across crowdsourcing and discovered the opportunity to solve complex scientific and technical problems for reward. I could use my unrealized scientific potential, and I could make money for my family with my own mind!

Yury Bodrov
Solver with 58+ Challenge awards since 2006

Have you heard about the ‘long tail’ of expertise in the world? Businesses pride themselves on the skills and experience of their staff, but these companies do not always have access to those outside their network.

Companies tend to use an average of 10-20 people to problem solve. When you extrapolate this to the size of large organizations, you discover that these businesses are only activating about 0.05% of their human capital. Would your business leaders be happy if they were presented with this statistic?

Wazoku gives global organizations access to the people you need to better innovate and reach your goals.

We enable companies to find the freelancers that help them consistently and repeatably access this capability, as well as nurturing open talent with interesting Challenges, large award amounts, and a new social Solver Community. We give organizations security (through legal and IP protection) and the confidence – with a strong, proven track record of success – that the process will work for them.

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Challenges run
2500+
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Innovations Captured
200,000+
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USD In Awards
$60M

Find out more from this presentation for Freelance Business Month by one of our Account Managers:

Are you a potential Solver or Seeker? Visit our Challenge Center today!

Want to learn more about the Center for the Transformation of Work? The CTW and its community of change makers want to make the world of work better for a billion people by 2030. Through community calls, open forums, and networking, the CTW connects open talent and organizations with opportunities for change. Find out more: https://transformationofwork.org/