Are you an innovator? Do you—or could you—have an idea for a solution that can be implemented in businesses worldwide? If so, you have the opportunity, as an individual or as part of a team, to participate in a global contest, obtain publicity for your solution and be a cash prize winner of up to $20,000.

Wipro Technologies, a software services firm headquartered in Bangalore, India, and Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania, have teamed up for the second year to conduct a global “Innovation Tournament“.

Inspired by the book Innovation Tournaments by Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich, this tournament will require participants to create solutions by which society can implement green technologies as well as customer-centric work processes. The tournament is open to all individuals and/or groups from around the world who wish to submit a solution for consideration.

The Innovation Tournament is structured in three phases as follows:

Phase I:

Participants will submit their ideas via this website in one of the following formats: Word document, PowerPoint presentation, PDF file or Excel spreadsheet. Submissions will be reviewed and judged by a panel of experts determined by the Wharton School and including key members of Wharton faculty, the Knowledge@Wharton team and the Wipro Council for Industry Research. From these submissions, the leading participants from the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia will be chosen based on the judging criteria. The deadline for submissions to the Innovation Tournament is March 7, 2011.

Phase II:

The individuals and/or groups whose solution has been selected to advance to Phase II will be designated as semi-finalists. Semi-finalists will be invited to submit a web-based presentation.

The top 15 semi-finalists will be selected and those individuals/groups will advance to the final phase of the tournament.

Phase III:

The top 15 semi-finalists will be designated as finalists, and invited to present their solutions at a final event in Philadelphia’s prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Each finalist will each be allotted time to present their solutions during this live event, a segment of which will be telecast on Wipro TV. A panel of judges will determine the top five presentations/solutions, and those finalists will receive prizes -- $20,000 for the grand prize, $5,000 in each of four categories: customer-centric new idea; sustainability new idea; customer-centric implemented solution; sustainability implemented solution. Finalists must be present in Philadelphia for this event to be considered for the top awards.

A round table discussion on innovation will take place after winners have been announced. The discussion will be filmed and made available as a web video after the event.

Additionally, finalists will be interviewed for podcasts and these will be made available on Knowledge@Wharton and Wipro Technologies' websites.*

* Knowledge@Wharton will own the rights to these audio recordings.

2011 Winners Announced!

Innovation Tournament 2011 was a great success! Wipro Technologies and Knowledge@Wharton announced five winners, from India, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Tanzania and the United States. Winners were awarded a total of $40,000 in cash prizes.

View the Winners

About the Sponsors

Wipro

Wipro is a global IT services company that leverages comprehensive business and technology solutions across diverse domains. Applying grassroots thinking, we address real world challenges that lead to successful transformations.


Knowledge@Wharton

Since its launch in 1999, Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s award-winning online journal of business research and analysis, has evolved from a single website into a network of sites that provide cutting-edge knowledge and timely business analysis to more than 1.6 million registered users. Recognized among its peers and outside experts as the premier online business school publication, Knowledge@Wharton uses innovative technology, including podcasts, videos and mobile channels, to engage its audience.

As of 2006, the Knowledge@Wharton Network included three regional editions: Universia Knowledge@Wharton, launched in January 2003, is published in Spanish, Portuguese and English. China Knowledge@Wharton, launched in March 2005, offers articles in simplified and traditional Chinese as well as English. India Knowledge@Wharton was launched in November 2006.

In its most recent efforts to expand its number of regional editions and in order to further provide cutting-edge knowledge to a wider audience, Knowledge@Wharton launched Arabic Knowledge@Wharton in March 2010 in partnership with the Abu Dhabi-based Centre of Excellence for Applied Research & Training (CERT).