InnoCentive Supports Habitat for Humanity in the Capture of Ideas to Improve Housing Quality and Safety in the Philippines

LONDON, October 8, 2020 (Newswire.com) - Open innovation firm InnoCentive is working with the global housing nonprofit Habitat for Humanity, to capture ideas to improve the quality of homes in low-income areas around the world.

More than 1.6 billion people lack adequate shelter, including families in homes with unsafe foundations, putting those people at risk in the event of an earthquake or typhoon. Habitat for Humanity is seeking innovative and cost-effective ways to retrofit such houses in the Philippines, strengthening the structure to withstand typhoon-force winds and high-magnitude earthquakes of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale.

The challenge - Increasing Resilience to Earthquakes and Typhoons for Homes with no Foundations - will run until Jan. 5, 2021 and contributions will be sought from InnoCentive's global network of nearly 500,000 expert problem "solvers", comprised of engineers, PhD students, CEOs, startups, material experts, scientists and business leaders. Innocentive has a long history of success for nonprofits, with challenges including finding biomarkers for diseases and predicting the spread of/existence of viruses. 

"Because so many families around the world build their homes incrementally, Habitat for Humanity is always looking for innovative ways to facilitate affordable upgrades of existing structures," said Patrick Kelley, vice president of Habitat's Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter. "No one can solve the complex and varied housing challenges in the world in isolation, and we want to capture ideas from as diverse a crowd as possible. The InnoCentive network is an intriguing opportunity for us to help advance our mission to improve the quality of housing."

The challenge will be supported by Innocentive's partner SeaFreight Labs, a consultancy delivering crowdsourcing solutions to the global seafreight community. They have come as a direct result of the SeaFreight Labs decision to join the Pledge 1% movement, in which organisations commit 1% of product/profit/employee time/equity to help the NFP of their choice.

In July 2020 InnoCentive was acquired by UK idea management firm Wazoku, creating the world's most comprehensive and powerful innovation platform and global Solver community. InnoCentive has a 75%+ success rate in solving challenges and has helped many of the world's most prominent organisations, such as AstraZeneca and Enel, and NFPs including GlobalGiving and World Vision.

"The InnoCentive crowd of solvers is a compelling proposition for any organisation looking to an external crowd to solve problems or find opportunities," said Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku. "Habitat for Humanity is looking to address housing challenges that have a transformative effect on people's lives, and our solvers have a fantastic track record in helping to meet such challenges."

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For further information about Wazoku, visit https://www.wazoku.com

For further information about InnoCentive, visit https://www.innocentive.com

For further information about SeaFreight Labs, visit https://www.seafreightlabs.com

For further information about Habitat for Humanity, visit https://www.habitat.org

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Source: InnoCentive