Innovation Challenges & Contests

What's a Challenge?

A challenge is exactly what the name suggests: it is a challenge by one party (a "seeker") to another party or parties (a "solver") to identify a solution to a particular problem or reward contestants for accomplishing a particular goal. Incentive prizes (monetary or non-monetary) often accompany innovation challenges and contests.

Challenges, prizes, and other incentive-backed strategies can be used by federal agencies to find innovative or cost-effective solutions.

Challenge platforms are the tools that provide a forum for the seeker to post the problem or call to action, and invite a community of solvers to suggest, collaborate on, and/or judge solutions. Solutions may be ideas, designs, or finished products.

Why It's Important

Challenges allow the public and the government to co-create. It allows government to tap into the creativity of the public, and allows the public to more easily contribute their knowledge and creativity to finding better solutions together. Challenges can range from fairly straight forward (idea suggestions, creation of logos, videos, digital games, mobile applications) to more complex.

Specific Requirements

OMB first called on agencies to use challenges and prizes in the December 8, 2009 Open Government Directive.

Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government,
(PDF, 94 KB, 12 pages, March 2010)

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act Fact Sheet and FAQ (PDF, 274 KB, 12 pages, August 2011) provides agencies with broad authority to conduct prize competitions, as called for in President Obama's 2009 Strategy for American Innovation.

How to Implement

Agencies have options to choose platforms that best meet their needs for specific challenges and to acquire services to plan, design, implement, and evaluate challenges.

GSA is offering federal agencies no-cost use of Challenge.gov, the government platform developed by Challenge Post.

Additional free tools with negotiated federally-compatible Terms of Services that can be used for online challenges are available on Apps.gov under Social Media Apps (e.g. IdeaScale, UserVoice, WordPress, STCI/VenCorps and YouTube).

In addition there are a number of providers that offer fee-based challenge platforms, specialized solver communities, and the technical assistance to plan, design, implement, and evaluate challenges. For example, the Department of Education has used STCI/VenCorps. NASA has used InnoCentive, TopCoder, and yet2.com. USDA has used ChallengePost.

Past Examples Across Government and Private Sector

Check out Challenge.gov for current challenges.

Video Contests

Application Development Challenges

Innovations, Inventions, Solutions

Ideas Challenges

Private Sector Challenges

Resources

Guidelines & Case Studies

White House Open Government Innovator's Toolkit features six case studies about Challenges and Prizes
Tips for Promoting Your Challenge/Contest
EPA—Guidelines for Creating a Video Contest
(MS Word, 185 KB, 22 pages, October 2009)
Putting Your Audience to Work: EPA's Radon Video Contest
DC's Apps for Democracy—How to Run Your Own Apps for Democracy Innovation Contest
(PDF, 4.4 MB, 19 pages, January 2010)
Kids.gov Poster Contest Lessons Learned
(PDF, 293 KB, 3 pages, January 2011), GSA
Jonathan Bays and Paul Jansen of McKinsey and McCompany produced a white paper on types of challenges and the planning process. Prizes: A Winning Strategy for Innovation

Selected Innovation Prizes and Reward Programs
(PDF, 720 KB, 51 pages, November 2008)
Knowledge Ecology International
Inducing Innovation Through Prizes (first published in Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization)
(PDF, 166 KB, 13 pages, Fall 2008)
Jaison G. Morgan
On April 30, 2010 the White House and the Case Foundation hosted a public/private strategy session on Promoting Innovation Through Challenges

Innovation and Collaboration
(MS PowerPoint, 608 KB, 18 pages, June 2010)
Jeffrey R. Davis, M.D., NASA

Policy Docs

Challenge.gov Accessibility Primer
(MS Word, 77 KB, 1 page, August 2011)
Challenge.gov "Cookies" Fact Sheet
(PDF, 397KB, 1 page, November 2010)
Challenge.gov Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) Fact Sheet
(PDF, 259KB, 1 page, November 2010)
Challenge.gov Paperwork Reduction Act Fact Sheet
(PDF, 127KB, 1 page, January 2012)
Challenge.gov Privacy Fact Sheet
(PDF, 396KB, 1 page, November 2010)
Challenge.gov Security Fact Sheet
(PDF, 266KB, 1 page, November 2010)
The America Competes Act, December 2010. Encourages the use of challenges.

Videos about Challenges

Jim Speros from the Department of Veterans Affairs offers advice about how to work with your Office of General Counsel on Challenges and Prizes (YouTube video, 6 minutes: 52 seconds).
Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris talks about how cost-effective challenges are, and the opportunities they present for citizens and businesses (YouTube video, 1 minute: 11 seconds).
In this highlight video, Challenge.gov: Celebrating Our First Year (YouTube video, 6 minutes: 16 seconds), you'll meet challenge winners and agency staff and get a sense of the impact these competitions have made.

April 30 White House and Case Foundation public/private strategy session on Promoting Innovation Through Challenges
Apps for Healthy Kids Introduction featuring Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
NYC Big Apps, February 2010
Post a Challenge on Challenge.gov!, July 2010
Launch of Challenge.gov by Bev Godwin and ChallengePost's Brandon Kessler, FedScoop, August 2010
Gov 2.0 Summit Launch of Challenge.gov, September 2010
Challenges and Prizes by Robynn Sturm, Potomac Forum Federal Agencies Symposium, November 2010

Sample Rules for Government Challenges

For more information and/or mentors at other agencies, contact Karen Trebon, GSA's Center for Excellence in Digital Government, 202-501-1802.

Content Lead: Karen Trebon
Page Reviewed/Updated: February 6, 2012