Software giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched an open innovation center in Nashik in India to solve community problems.
The physical and online problem-solving initiative is looking for ways to reduce school dropouts and improve soil and water health among many other pressing issues.
The project is called Digital Impact Square (DIS) and its challenges are open to students, individual entrepreneurs and early-stage startups. It was inspired in part by MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture research group’s work in India to foster collaboration between local government, citizens and TCS in Nashik.
“At the Digital Impact Square, you will have the opportunity to work with people from diverse industry sectors and backgrounds, common citizens and governments – to jointly develop common solutions to fundamental challenges of today” – N Chandra, CEO & MD, TCS
Open Innovation Challenges
The challenges will be run in 6-month cycles. Currently, there are 21 posted challenges, seeking solutions for such problems as:
Arriving at workable solutions is a 4-stage process.
In the Spot Phase, DIS will select up to 20 solutions and/or up to 100 ideators. In the Probe Phase, shortlisted ideas will be worked on and developed, which will involve a boot camp.
In the Grow Phase, participants will develop their solutions with an academic or industry partner. Then comes the Scale Phase where Tata will help shortlisted participants to scale up their products.
For more information on this open innovation project, click here.