The online challenge that will be conducted from January 20 to May 1, 2009, features competition among university transdisciplinary student teams.  Students will compete in three major categorical areas: 1. Information Technology in Healthcare, 2. Re-engineering Care and Use of Interdisciplinary Teams, and 3. Healthcare improvements using Internet Social Networks /Health 2.0 platforms.

The competition is open to teams of 3-5 graduate and undergraduate students for an entry fee of $125. After release of the specific challenge questions framed by major sponsors, teams will submit a three- page concept paper that will be evaluated online by 120 independent expert judges representing healthcare, academic, and business entities. The six top teams will receive an expense-paid trip to Phoenix for final presentations on May 1 with the winning team receiving an $8,000 prize.

Idea Crossing, located in Los Angeles, created the successful MBA Innovation Challenge® in 2002 and employs Challenge Accelerator®, a proprietary software platform to conduct the competition completely online.  “The Healthcare Innovation Challenge differs from our previous partner challenges in two ways,” noted Garen Corbett, Idea Crossing Director of the Challenge.  “The first is that it is cross-disciplinary and seeks participation from many professions. The second unique aspect of this initiative is that the strategic solutions generated by the student teams will generally be open to any innovator as publicly available intellectual property, rather than the sole intellectual property of sponsors.”

Linda Mottle, Director of the Center of Healthcare Innovation & Clinical Trials at ASU, said, “The purposes of the challenge are to foster inter-industry student collaboration, attract tomorrow’s leaders, and help solve real-world healthcare challenges from the ground up. Our partnership with Idea Crossing will synergize this effort with its vast expertise by bringing an Innovation Challenge® competition into the healthcare arena. The ultimate goal is to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in the healthcare field.”

Healthcare industry sponsors, expert judges, and higher education institutions and students are encouraged to participate. Visit the main web site for detailed information and registration at:  http://healthcare.innovationchallenge.com/.

About Idea Crossing, Inc.
Idea Crossing helps organizations capture the world's imagination and use it to solve strategic challenges. Idea Crossing designs and produces idea contests or innovation competitions using its customizable software platform called Challenge Accelerator®. Over the last six years, Idea Crossing has designed, powered and supported several competitions for global brands, large foundations and academic organizations. Idea Crossing's competitions have been featured in leading publications like CNN Money, Business 2.0, Inc. Magazine, Chicago Tribune and others on the topic of open innovation, crowdsourcing, crowdcasting and philanthropic innovation prizes.

About ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation
The ASU College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation is one of largest and most innovative colleges of nursing in the United States with more than 2,000 students and 8,200 alumni. Its Center for Healthcare Innovation & Clinical Trials serves as a recognized, national linchpin among clinicians, biotechnical organizations, scientists, collaborating healthcare institutions, and community partners to advance healthcare through the creation of evidence-based innovative products and educational programs.

ASU Editorial Contact:                            Editorial Contact for Idea Crossing:
Terry.Olbrysh@asu.edu                           Dan Chmielewski,            
O: 602-496-0877, C: 602-281-5124        O: 714-832-8716, C: 949-231-2965
                                                            dchm@madisonalexanderpr.com

The Innovation Challenge® was created and is operated by Idea Crossing, whose mission is to help organizations capture the world's imagination and use it to solve crucial strategic challenges. Sponsors of this year's Innovation Challenge include American Express OPEN(SM) and Hilton Hotels which sponsored the winning prizes, aswell as the Navy Federal Credit Union, RBC Bank, and the Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

This year's Innovation Challenge® attracted 264 teams from 55 schools for a total of 1139 contestants representing 48 countries worldwide.Ten Teams qualified for the finals this year from a variety of business schools across the country, including the Australian Graduate School of Management, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Manchester Business School (with two teams), University of Washington, UC Davis, VCU Brandcenter and the Darden School of Business, with three teams.

Darden's two winning teams, Team Wildhoos and Team Alchemy won the American Express OPEN Award and the $20,000 overall prize that is presented to the most innovative MBA team, and was designated 'The Most Innovative MBA Team in the World.' Team Wildhoos was made up of Darden students Joanna Johnson, Katie Wilson, Kathryn Adams, Andrew Hutchinson and Austin Collins. Team Alchemy won the Hilton Award, and consisted of Darden students Michael Mills, Andrew Beasley, Jon Pugh, and Doug Hopek.

'On behalf of Idea Crossing, I would like to congratulate the winners of this year's Innovation Challenge competition,' said Anil Rathi, CEO & Founder of Idea Crossing. 'After several attempts in previous years, this was the first time student teams from the hosting institution won the competition. It was also the first year that we chose to allow the sponsors - American Express OPEN and Hilton - to each award their top choice. All the judges together picked an overall 1st place winner across both days of presentations. It was not considered likely that one team would win more than one prize, but Darden teams swept all three top prize categories. '

Philippe Sommer, a director at the Batten Institute commented, 'On behalf of the Darden School of Business and the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, and of course Team Wildhoos and Team Alchemy, it is a true honor to accept these awards. We are proud of the 38 Darden Teams and 142 Darden students who participated, and are particularly proud of the students on teams Wildhoos and Alchemy for sweeping all three top prize categories, including, of course, the honorific, ‘Most Innovative MBA Team in the World. This success is all the more gratifying since in prior years Darden teams either did not place among the finals, or if they did, failed to win.''

About Idea Crossing, Inc.

Idea Crossing is the owner and operator of the Innovation Challenge ® competitions, the MBA edition is the largest competition of its kind in the world, consistently uniting hundreds of teams from the top 100 MBA programs worldwide with some of the biggest global brands in a groundbreaking experience designed to solve real-world business challenges. In January 2009, Idea Crossing and Arizona State University is launching the first Healthcare Innovation Challenge. Interested sponsors can visit www.ideacrossing.com for more information.

Idea Crossing helps organizations capture the world's imagination and use it to solve strategic challenges. Idea Crossing designs and produces idea contests or innovation competitions using its customizable software platform called Challenge Accelerator®. Over the last six years, Idea Crossing has designed, powered and supported several competitions for global brands, large foundations and academic organizations. Idea Crossing's competitions have been featured in leading publications like CNN Money, Business 2.0, Inc. Magazine, Chicago Tribune and many others on the topic of open innovation, crowdsourcing, crowdcasting and philanthropic innovation prizes.

About the Darden School of Business

Consistently ranked among the world's best MBA programs, the DardenSchool of Business improves society by developing principled leadersfor the world of practical affairs. To accomplish this, we embrace a rigorous and collaborative approach to learning that inspires informed judgment, decisive action, and a global, enterprise perspective. The Princeton Review ranked Darden #1 in the "Best Professors" category in the 2009 edition of its "Best 296 Business Schools."

About the Batten Endowment

Entrepreneurship courses were first offered at the Darden School in1961. In 1996, and 2000 generous gifts from UVa alumnus Frank Batten, Sr., former CEO and Chairman of Landmark Communications and founder ofthe Weather Channel, the Batten family of Norfolk, Virginia, and its Landmark Foundation led to the creation of the Batten Endowment. The Batten Endowment created and supports the Batten Institute which is an academic institute seeking to improve society by creating new knowledge about the transformative power of entrepreneurship and innovation.. The Batten Endowment also supports the Entrepreneurship Program at Darden, educating and cultivating principled, entrepreneurial leaders through experiential programs such as the Innovation Challenge®.

Idea Crossing Adds Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Sponsor for Sixth Annual Innovation Challenge® Competition

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Idea Crossing, Inc. (http://www.ideacrossing.com/),        the creators and producers of the Innovation Challenge® crowdsourcing competitions, today announced that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Pioneer Portfolio (http://www.rwjf.org/pioneer/) has been added as an online round sponsor for the 2008 Innovation Challenge competition (http://www.innovationchallenge.com/). The final round will be held at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia in mid-November. RWJF is the first philanthropic organization to join the Challenge – and will ultimately showcase how the Innovation Challenge can be used to develop innovation solutions to today’s pressing health challenges.

RWJF will tap the global online network of graduate student problem solvers to create solutions that use the power of mobile technologies to educate members of Generation Y on ways to prevent HIV infection. This RWJF-sponsored competition has drawn entries from nearly 100 teams to their challenge question.

According to a new report in the October 3, 2008 edition of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that more than a million people are living with HIV in the United States.

“The magnitude of the HIV/AIDS crisis around the world requires innovative, out-of-the box thinking,”  said Paul Tarini, RWJF senior program officer and team leader for the Pioneer Portfolio, which supports innovative ideas that may lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care. “The Innovation Challenge is an opportunity to demonstrate how competitions and creative thinking can source new solutions to pressing health and       health care problems.”

“Crowdcasting competitions like ones enabled by Idea Crossing don’t just benefit private        enterprise, they can be designed to benefit the public at large,”  said Anil Rathi, president and CEO, Idea Crossing. At the end of this year’s competition, we will, for the first time, open source ideas generated as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s challenge support into the public domain. Any individual or organization will be able to access the concepts and   act on them for the benefit of humanity.”

This year’s competition has attracted more than 260 teams from 55 colleges and universities (more than 1,100 participants from more than 48 countries). Sponsors include American        Express OPEN, Hilton Hotels, Navy Federal Credit Union, RBC Bank, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and partners Darden School of Business, futurethink and The Medici Group. Previous sponsors include IBM, Chrysler, Whirlpool Corporation, Google and others.

Nearly 250 submissions were received by the competition’s 260 judges, who represent 209 organizations and will determine 25 semi-finalist teams. Sponsors will narrow down the submissions to 10 finalists on October 28, who will then face off at the University of        Virginia’s Darden School of Business,  November 20-22, 2008.

For details on the 2008 Innovation Challenge® competition or to become a sponsor for a future competition, go to http://www.innovationchallenge.com/

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of       organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. The Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas and projects that may trigger important breakthroughs in health and health care. Projects in the Pioneer Portfolio are typically future-oriented and look beyond conventional thinking to explore solutions at the cutting edge of health and health care.

For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the        Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org.

About Idea Crossing, Inc.

Based in Los Angeles, Idea Crossing specializes in the design, production and operation of public and private innovation prizes such as the Innovation Challenge® business        competition. Idea Crossing’s software platform called Challenge Accelerator® and Design | Produce |Play process is used to customize and automate online innovation competitions. In the last six years, the Company has designed and supported over a dozen competitions with thousands of participants. Clients include IBM, Hilton Hotels, the U.S. Postal Service, Chrysler, and Whirlpool, Red Hat, as well as foundations and academic institutions.

Innovation Challenge is a registered service mark of Idea Crossing, Inc.

For more information on Idea Crossing, visit http://www.ideacrossing.com.

About Darden School of Business

Consistently ranked among the world's leading business schools, Darden develops principled leaders who lead, create, and transform organizations. To make this possible, Darden offers a two-year MBA, an MBA for Executives, and numerous Executive Education programs, which     embrace a rigorous and collaborative approach to learning that inspires  informed judgment, decisive action, and a global, enterprise perspective. The Princeton Review recently ranked Darden #1 in the "Best Professors" category in the 2009 edition of its "Best 296 Business        Schools."

                                                                ###

Contacts:

Madison Alexander PR, Inc. for Idea Crossing, Inc.
Dan Chmielewski,        714-832-8716 or 949-231-2965
dchm@madisonalexanderpr.com

The Medici Summit: Where Business & Innovation Intersect

March 3-4, 2008 in Scottsdale, AZ

In his remarkable bestseller, The Medici Effect, Johansson took readers on a fascinating journey to Intersections where ideas from differing industries and cultures collide, igniting an explosion of innovations. Now, in The Medici Summit: Where Business & Innovation Intersect, Johansson and the elite cadre of speakers he has gathered will show registrants how to recognize, and more importantly, maximize the intersections in their lives and businesses to create and drive innovations.

http://www.themedicisummit.com/         

Leadership and success are, inherently, tied to innovation, which is rooted in diversity. And visionary concepts—those which will revolutionize business, society and individual lives in the future—will come from individuals open to the transforming ideas born at the intersections of disciplines and cultures encountered today. This conference will address how to develop creative environments and teams, generate ideas, understand how to implement innovative ideas, and then maintain their momentum.

The Medici Institute: Where Business and Innovation Intersect is an intense and invigorating two-day program designed for senior-level executives and business leaders—company owners, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, presidents, and all those charged with their organization's new product development, R&D, innovation, creativity, or diversity programs.

Charlottesville, VA- Saturday, November 17th, 2007--The University of North Carolina-Kenan Flagler, Indian School of Business and London Business School won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place respectively at Idea Crossing's 5th Annual Innovation Challenge hosted by the Darden Graduate School of Business. The competition attracted over 1200 participants from

57 countries and 63 of the best MBA programs and was sponsored by Hilton, OPEN from American Express, Whirlpool, Lexmark, Harley-Davidson and Shell.

The "Most Innovative MBA Team in the World" from UNC's "Kenan Flagler Flash"team consist of Danvers Fleury (team leader), Sara Jane Sparks, Tyler Mills, Rachel Kuhn and Brian Stempeck. Fleury and Sparks participated in the 2006 Innovation Challenge and placed 2nd. A first place prize of $20,000 was awarded.

The 2nd Most Innovative MBA Team in the World from the Indian School of Business who named themselves "Innova" include Prashant Goel, Pushkar Jain, Meghna Rao, Sushant Bhansali and Nishant Pandey.  The team arrived from Hyderabad late Thursday evening presented their innovative solution several hours later for American Express then again on Saturday for Hilton Hotels Corporation. 2 of the team members had to fly back to India immediately after their presentation to take an exam on Monday. 2nd place prize of $7,500 was awarded. Third place, London Business School team, include Jeik Sohn, Gloria Chow, Kitty Lee, Emmanuel Coucke and Daniel Hanna.

The judging panel was made up of a diverse group of executives from sponsors, entrepreneurs and innovation experts, including:

• Kirk Thompson, VP, Hilton Brand Marketing
• Lisa Zemke, Director, Services and Standards at Hilton Hotels
• Jennifer Marcou, VP, Business and Product Development at OPEN from American Express
• Rosa Chen, Director, Business and Product Development at OPEN from American Express
• Randy Voss, Senior Manager, Global Strategy and Business Development, Whirlpool Corporation
• Eric McGraw, Manager, Strategy and Planning, Harley-Davidson Motor Company
• Jim Webster, Innovations Director at Shell
• Matt Mason, Author, The Pirates' Dilemma
• Lisa Bodell, Founder & CEO, futurethink
• Derrick Palmer, Principal, InnovationPoint
• Daphne Carmeli, Founder and Former CEO, Metreo
  

Polly LaBarre, CNN correspondent and co-author of "Mavericks at Work" gave an outstanding keynote address to the Challenge community at the Hilton Awards Dinner which was held at the University of Virginia's Rotunda, a World Heritage site designed by Thomas Jefferson. Following the awards ceremony contestants enjoyed an after party sponsored by Google.

About Innovation Challenge
The Innovation Challenge® is the largest competition of its kind in the world, consistently uniting hundreds of teams from the top 100 MBA programs worldwide with some of the biggest global brands in a groundbreaking experience designed to solve real-world business challenges. Idea Crossing created the Innovation Challenge in 2003.

About Idea Crossing, Inc.
Idea Crossing fuses the groundbreaking ideas of passionate individuals with the curiosity of forward-thinking organizations through the design, production, and operation of innovation competitions. Our proven web-based platform Challenge Accelerator® also facilitates the inherently complex stages of innovation competitions while simultaneously providing an optimal experience for everyone involved. Clients include Hilton Hotels, American Express, Harley-Davidson, Whirlpool, General Electric, Red Hat, as well as foundations and academic institutions. For more information please contact Anil K. Rathi at rathi[at]ideacrossing[dot]com.

About Batten Institute at Darden School of Business
The Darden School was founded as the Virginia Business School in 1954 and its first classes in entrepreneurship and small business were offered in 1961. In early 1996, Darden created the Batten Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership with a generous gift from the Batten family of Norfolk, Virginia, and its Landmark Foundation. The Batten Institute, which succeeded the Batten Center on January 1, 2000, was made possible through a subsequent gift from University of Virginia alumnus Frank Batten, Sr.

On behalf of our online round sponsors (Hilton Hotels, Harley-Davidson, Whirlpool, Lexmark and Shell) the Top 10 Most Innovative MBA Teams are....

Click here to view the results.

The Innovation Challenge is featured as a case study in Chapter 2: Go from R&D to R&We
in a new book published by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

In addition, you can listen to a podcast with Anil Rathi, Founder & CEO of Idea Crossing
here: http://www.wearesmarter.org/default.aspx?tabid=1578

About the book:

WE ARE SMARTER THAN ME: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business by
Barry Libert and Jon Spector, Foreword by Wikinomics author Don Tapscott,
is the first book to show anyone in business how to profit from the wisdom of crowds.

To learn more about the book visit: http://www.wearesmarter.org/

Drawing on their own research and the insights from an enormous community of more than
4,000 people, Barry Libert and Jon Spector have written a book that reveals what works,
and what doesn’t, when you are building community into your decision making and
business processes.            

In We Are Smarter Than Me, you will discover exactly how to use social networking
and community in your business, driving better decision-making and greater
profitability. The book shares powerful insights and new case studies from product
development, manufacturing, marketing, customer service, finance, management, and
beyond. You’ll learn which business functions can best be accomplished or supported
by communities; how to provide effective moderation, balance structure with
independence, manage risk, define success, implement effective metrics, and much
more. From tools and processes to culture and leadership, We Are Smarter than Me
will help you transform the promise of social networking into a profitable reality.

Learn how to present your innovative ideas from Chic Thompson and Philippe Sommer of the Batten Institute at Darden School of Business.

Chic and Philippe discuss tried and true strategies for presenting winning ideas. Take advantage of these tools for success.

Visit the Batten Institute Podcast Series page

Winning Presentations 1
Winning Presentations 2
Brainstorming Winning Ideas 1
Brainstorming Winning Ideas 2

Learn how the 2006 Most Innovative MBA Team in the World, McGill University, won the Innovation Challenge.

Idea Crossing's annual Innovation Challenge featured in the Chicago Tribune
August 26, 2007-Check out the article below discussing the growing trend of innovation competitions or what we like to call 'crowdcasting'. Click here to read more. Ruckus Nation, an idea competition we are also powering for HopeLab Foundation (this fall) is also featured.

Why is this happening? Because the collective ideas of many will always be better than those of a few.