The purpose of science competitions or science fairs in STEM education is to provide students with opportunities to experience and practice science as it is practiced and experienced in the real world. The Innovate to Mitigate project hosts an annual open innovation challenge for students aged 13-18 to develop methods for mitigating global warming. Over several weeks, students innovate, develop prototype solutions, and engage with peers and with scientists online about their developing ideas. Finally, they submit videos and papers for discussion and judging by a panel of scientists. Submissions over the past few years have included projects over a wide range of domains, for example, energy conservation, renewable energy, agricultural innovations, or social/behavioral change. Framing learning goals for science fairs and science competitions around phenomena that are meaningful to young people offers the opportunity to make direct connections to relevant science and to understand how science is useful in society. We offer suggestions based on what we have learned that provide multiple ways for teachers to begin to support students in learning and effectively using the science practices. Carefully designed competition environments can reveal students as effective problem-solvers, unleash their imaginations, and help them to innovate.
more »
« less
Does Open Innovation Open Doors for Underrepresented Groups to Contribute to Technology Innovation?: Evidence from a Space Robotics Challenge
- Award ID(s):
- 2125677
- PAR ID:
- 10448608
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Space Policy
- Volume:
- 64
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0265-9646
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 101550
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
In this landmark special issue of IEEE Design & Test, we are thrilled to present the burgeoning realm of Open-Source Silicon, a sector that is not just evolving but also revolutionizing the way we approach IC design and semiconductor technology. Since the inception of the OpenMPW program by Google, SkyWater, and Efabless in 2020, the landscape of open-source IC design has expanded exponentially, signaling a new era of innovation, collaboration, and accessibility in semiconductor design.more » « less
-
Open source software (OSS) is software that anyone can review, modify, and distribute freely, usually with only minor restrictions such as giving credit to the creator of the work. The use of OSS is growing rapidly, due to its value in increasing firm and economy-wide productivity. Despite its widespread use, there is no standardized methodology for measuring the scope and impact of this fundamental intangible asset. This study presents a framework to measure the value of OSS using data collected from GitHub, the largest platform in the world with over 100 million developers. The data include over 7.6 million repositories where software is developed, stored, and managed. We collect information about contributors and development activity such as code changes and license detail. By adopting a cost estimation model from software engineering, we develop a methodology to generate estimates of investment in OSS that are consistent with the U.S. national accounting methods used for measuring software investment. We generate annual estimates of current and inflation-adjusted investment as well as the net stock of OSS for the 2009–2019 period. Our estimates show that the U.S. investment in 2019 was $37.8 billion with a current-cost net stock of $74.3 billion.more » « less
-
With its focus on value creation and value capture, open innovation research explicitly or implicitly examines the competitive impacts of collaboration. However, to date such research has not considered the effects of a blockbuster industry structure upon open innovation. Here, we examine a particular form of multilateral collaboration, the open R&D consortium, in which the results from collaboration are allowed to spill over to members and nonmembers alike. We do so in the context of the pharmaceutical industry, a stable but fragmented industry defined by the ongoing search for blockbuster hits protected by strong appropriability. Using a novel data set, we identify 141 such consortia that involve two or more of the 30 largest pharma firms. We show that firms financially support such consortia, in part, because their value creation activities benefit members without disrupting the value capture or other aspects of the incumbent industry structure. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on multilateral collaboration in blockbuster industries, and open innovation more generally.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

