Government & Public Sector

Powering Government Innovation From Idea to Impact.

From national security and defence to environmental protection, public health, and space exploration, governments face challenges too complex for any single agency, contractor, or discipline to solve alone. Everyday Wazoku helps governments solve these critical challenges — by managing internal innovation programmes, opening the hardest problems to a global solver network, and tracking measurable value from concept to deployment.

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The Challenge

Government innovation is often trapped inside institutional silos.

The public sector controls trillions in annual spending, employs millions of specialists, and tackles problems from climate change to biodefence, yet the systems designed to solve these problems — traditional procurement, internal R&D labs, and contracted research — draw from the same narrow pools of incumbent suppliers and credentialed experts. Internal ideas go unheard. External expertise goes untapped. And when a problem sits at the intersection of disciplines, geographies, or security classifications, the standard approach fails.

The scale of untapped potential is enormous. The UK Civil Service alone employs 470,000 people, yet most departments have no structured way to capture, evaluate, and implement their ideas. The problems span every part of government: pathogen identification, satellite anomaly prediction, underwater mine detection, arsenic sensing, humanitarian logistics, search planning, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) defence, service delivery improvement, policy innovation, and operational efficiency. These are challenges that cut across disciplines, security classifications, departments, and national boundaries — and solving them requires both internal engagement and external reach.

Wazoku believes there is a better way to meet these challenges.

The Challenge

Wazoku brings a world of experience

Open the problem to the world

Tap into 1,000,000+ problem-solvers across disciplines.

Through Innocentive, government agencies can post their toughest technical challenges to a global network spanning:

Engineering Data science Chemistry Biology Materials science And more

Many breakthroughs in defence and public sector innovation come from adjacent fields and unexpected solvers.

·NASA's solar flare prediction challenge was solved by a retired radio engineer
·The Air Force's vehicle-stopper challenge was solved by a 66-year-old retiree in Peru

Innocentive is purpose-built to find them.

Deliver measurable outcomes

Innovation programmes built for government. Results you can prove.

Our managed service designs and runs innovation programmes tailored to government needs, with xV value tracking that shows ministers, boards, and oversight bodies exactly what innovation is delivering.

Proven impact includes:

·83% success rate across Innocentive's US government challenges
·The MoD's Wazoku-powered Defence Ideas Programme identified synthetic aviation fuel for military jets
·DTRA's $1 million pathogen algorithm challenge replaced what would have been years of laboratory work, solved in weeks by three scientists no government contractor had ever heard of

Build innovation capacity across the enterprise

One platform to coordinate innovation across the whole organisation.

Wazoku.ai gives government organisations a single platform to manage their entire innovation landscape, including:

Internal idea campaigns Startup & SME scouting Academic partnerships Portfolio governance Value tracking

Used at scale across government:

·The UK Ministry of Defence uses Wazoku to crowdsource ideas from across the Royal Navy, British Army, RAF, and Joint Forces Command — replacing a legacy scheme that had already delivered £51 million in savings and efficiencies
·The UK Cabinet Office chose Wazoku to power the 'One Big Thing' programme, engaging 470,000 civil servants across every government department

Trusted globally

Wazoku has helped a wide range of government organisations from US federal agencies, UK government departments, NATO, the United Nations, and international defence forces. They have supported hundreds of government and public sector innovation programmes and challenges.

NASA US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) IARPA IWTSD / CTTSO (Department of Defense) US Bureau of Reclamation US EPA USAID US Department of State Department of Homeland Security UK Ministry of Defence UK Cabinet Office / Civil Service HMRC Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) NATO DIANA UNDP (United Nations) New Zealand Defence Force 113 UK Local Authorities West Midlands Academic Health Science Network (NHS)

Client Success Stories

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Deep Government & Public Sector Experience

Government and public sector represents Wazoku's longest-standing and most impactful market, spanning national security, defence, space, environment, intelligence, international development, and civil service reform. The relationship operates on two levels. Through Innocentive, Wazoku has run over 500 prize challenges for the US government since 2005 with an 83% success rate, backed by a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, a GSA Schedule contract, and partnerships with Booz Allen Hamilton and NASA's CoECI. Through the wazoku.ai platform, government organisations manage internal innovation at scale — the UK MoD runs idea campaigns across all five services, the UK Cabinet Office engages the entire Civil Service, HMRC drives operational innovation, and NATO DIANA coordinates startup scouting across allied nations.

UK Ministry of Defence: Innovation Across All Services

The Ministry of Defence selected Wazoku's platform in 2019 to replace its legacy GEMS Scheme, deploying it across the Royal Navy, British Army, RAF, Joint Forces Command, and Defence Infrastructure Organisation. The predecessor scheme had already generated 5,000–7,000 ideas and achieved £14 million in direct savings and £37 million in efficiencies. MoD set a target of £150 million through the upgraded Wazoku-powered programme. Notable outcomes include the discovery and validation of synthetic aviation fuel for military jets through the Defence Ideas Programme.

DTRA: The $1 Million Pathogen Algorithm

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency posted the largest single prize challenge in Innocentive's history: $1,000,000 for an algorithm to rapidly identify unknown pathogens from raw DNA sequence data. Previous methods took up to a week. Nearly 3,000 researchers worldwide participated. The winning Team Huson — Daniel Huson (University of Tübingen, Germany), Benjamin Buchfink (graduate student, Germany), and Xie Chao (Singapore) — reduced identification time from a week to tens of minutes. Three scientists unknown to the US government solved what years of contracted research had not.

Government Innovation in Action

UK Ministry of Defence

UK Cabinet Office

NASA

U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)

Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)

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Whether you're a government agency, department, or allied organisation, our team has deep experience running innovation programmes across the public sector. Let's explore what Wazoku can deliver for your mission.

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