Nokia Networks Announces Open Innovation Challenge

Contests can drive innovation and invention, and Nokia is doing its part once again with its third consecutive Open Innovation Challenge, which was launched August 3 in Finland and will close September 20, and this year will focus on the IoT.

Nokia Networks said in the announcement that it is seeing “an explosion of possibilities for consumers, industries and societies enabled by the IoT.” This year’s challenge offers developers an opportunity to collaborate with the company on game-changing ideas for the future of the IoT.

The vision is to expand the possibilities of technology to improve lives by connecting people, things, sensors and devices within various verticals, including health, security, automotive, public safety, industrial Internet and smart cities.

The Nokia Open Innovation Challenge 2015 is a call for innovative ideas, technologies or business models and an opportunity to collaborate with Nokia to advance innovations within the IoT. Through the challenge, the company hopes that new ideas will come forward, leading to the winners leveraging Nokia’s global market reach and connectivity expertise. Others may be selected by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), Nokia’s investment arm and co-sponsor of the challenge, which is actively investing in promising IoT companies.

The submission period continues until September 20. Large and small startups, teams, businesses, individual developers and academic researchers are invited to enter the challenge and submit a working prototype.

“Today, the pace of innovation matters more and more in our daily lives and, at Nokia, we are showing our openness to incorporating innovations from all around us by launching our third annual Open Innovation Challenge,” said Hossein Moiin, EVP and CTO, Nokia Networks. “Our objective is to reach out to the brightest innovators and experts in the IoT domain so that we, together, can help build a future that will benefit us all. I am personally committed to champion the best innovations towards global market success together with Nokia.”

And if you’re of a mind for competition, there’s still time to enter the AT&T Fast Pitch and the Battle of the Platforms at IoT Evolution Expo, next week, August 17 to 20, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.