PBAF 599: Prize-Driven Innovation and Philanthropy – Winter 2011 – Course Syllabus

Instructors: Kevin C. Desouza, Sandra Archibald, and Ann Bostrom

Mondays 3:00-5:50    PAR (108)

Credit Hours: 2

Email: kevin(dot)c(dot)desouza [at] gmail [.com] and abostrom @ u.washington.edu

Course Description: This course is part of a two course sequence that explores the use of prize-based competitions to foster innovation and philanthropy. Prize-based competitions have been used with great success (e.g. X-Prize Foundation, Kravis Prize, etc) to foster solution development in complex areas. In this course, we explore the theoretical and applied perspectives to prize development. Specifically, in the first part of the course (i.e. the Winter Quarter), we will explore the theoretical evidence for prize-based competitions to foster innovation. In the second part of the course, students, working in inter-disciplinary teams, will develop prize concepts within the domain of urban water resource management.

Learning Objectives:
Upon the completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. Articulate the features of incentive prizes and contexts in which they are most effective
2. Describe incentive prizes in the context of existing economic models of innovation
3. Analyze effective areas for investment of limited resources to foster innovation for global advancement
4. Work effectively in interdisciplinary teams
5. Develop a prize concept and present to stakeholders
6. Appreciate the grand challenges of urban water resource management

Schedule:

Week	Date	Topic	Speaker	Readings / Assignments Due
1	Jan 3	Course Introduction, Goals, and Introduction to Prize-based Competition for Innovation and Philanthropy;The X-Prize Model: The TB Case	Ann Bostrom, Erika Wagner and Kevin Desouza (via Skype)	https://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza/courses/TB.zip.
2	Jan 10	The Innovation Process	Kevin Desouza	Desouza, K.C., Dombrowski, C., Awazu, Y., Baloh, P., Sangareddy, S.R.P., Jha, S., and Kim, J.Y. “Crafting Organizational Innovation Processes,” Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 11 (1), 2009, 6-33. Awazu, Y., Baloh, P. , Desouza, K.C., Wecht, C.H., Kim, J.Y., and Jha, S. “Information-Communication Technologies Open Up Innovation,” Research-Technology Management, 52(1), 2009, 51-58.
3	Jan 17	No Class – MLK Holiday		Assignment: Initial Team Composition
4	Jan 24	Water Panel I – Introduction to Grand Challenges in Urban Water Resource Management Part 1: Joel BakerPart 2:  Mark Benjamin, Mark Benjamin; Michael T. Brett; Michael C. Dodd; Gregory V. Korshin	Moderated by Ann Bostrom	Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report, IBM Global Environmental Health: Research Gaps and Barriers for Providing Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Services: Workshop Summary (2009) National Academies Press, Washington DC.   (read at least pages 1-16)
5	Jan 31	Innovation Panel: Ben Slivka, Lindbergh, Rick LeFaivre	Moderated by Kevin Desouza
6	Feb 7	Howard McCurdy – Innovation and S&T Policy		Assignment: Team Goals and Strategies
7	Feb 14	Water Panel – IIPart 1: Alan Hamlet, Erkan Istanbulluoglu (confirmed), and Jessica Lundquist (invited) (UW) Part 2: Sally Brown (UW) and Sue Kaufman-Una (King County Reclaimed water program)	Moderated by Ann Bostrom
8	Feb 21	No Class – Presidents’ Day		Assignment: Initial Problem Description and Research
9	Feb 28	Solving Complex Problems: Causal Diagrams and Modeling	Ann Bostrom	Dhandapani, Dhanasekar (2004).  Applying the Fishbone diagram and Pareto principle to Domino, Part 1.
10	Mar 7	Reflection Presentations and Course Wrap-up	Kevin C. Desouza	Team Initial Concept Presentation and Reflection Paper

Grading:

1. Class participation: 20%
2. Presentation: 30%
3. Team formation: 30%
4. Reflection paper: 20%

Class Participation: This class will be conducted in a workshop model. Attendance at all class sessions is hence mandatory, and active class participation is also expected. Students should do assigned readings, conduct background research about guest speakers, and engage in the class dialogue.

Presentation: Each student will be given an opportunity to make a brief in-class presentation (about 20 minutes). It is expected that the student will discuss contemporary issues on prize-based competitions for innovation and philanthropy. The student should share with the class 3-4 related articles (either from newspapers, academic journals, etc) at least 48 hrs before their presentation.

Team Formation and Assignments: During the Winter Quarter, students will conduct preliminary work towards creating their inter-disciplinary teams that will work on prize concepts. To this end, it is important that students network with their peers, identify teammates, and create preliminary team charters (i.e. the focus of the team, roles of members, tentative project plan, etc). Throughout the course, the teams will have time to work collaboratively on a number of hands-on, in class, assignments (e.g. problem identification, causal models, etc).

Reflection Paper: A brief (5 page) reflection paper must be prepared during the 9^th week of the Quarter. This paper should outline critical learning one took away from the course. This is an opportunity to showcase how the student synthesized material presented in class with external readings, etc. In addition, the paper should focus on one of the core topics discussed in class (e.g. metrics, economics of innovation, etc) and outline additional resources, approaches, etc that may be considered for future classes.

Selected Readings:

1. NRC National Research Council (2007) Innovation Inducement Prizes at the National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11816
2. McKinsey Report, And the winner is…. http://www.xprize.org/about/the-mckinsey-report
3. Knight KJ, Cunio PM, Kwan JD, Bhushan B, Wagner EB (2010) Prizes for Energy Innovation: Incentives for Today’s Challenges (MIT IPC Working Paper 10-007) http://web.mit.edu/ipc/research/energy/pdf/EIP_10-001.pdf
4. Dhandapani, Dhanasekar (2004).  Applying the Fishbone diagram and Pareto principle to Domino, Part 1.  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/fishbone/
5. Water reports: Water: A Global Innovation Outlook Report, IBM.  Availsble at:  http://www.ibm.com/ibm/gio/water.html
6. Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice (BPH), Institute of Medicine, Global Environmental Health: Research Gaps and Barriers for Providing Sustainable Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Services: Workshop Summary (2009) National Academies Press, Washington DC.  Free pdf download available at:  http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12597
7. Useful websites:

• EU SWITCH resources, http://switchurbanwater.lboro.ac.uk/outputs/results.php?theme_select=5&pt=Theme%205%20Resources&m=0,3,5,1
• NAE grand challenge of clean water, http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9142.aspx
• UN World Water Week (Planning for world water day 2011): http://www.worldwaterweek.org/sa/node.asp?node=750&sa_content_url=/plugins/EventFinder/event.asp&id=3&event=252

Information on visiting speakers:

• Joel Baker,  http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/urbanwaters/about/staff.html
• Mark M. Benjamin, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/benjamin_m.html
• Mike Brett, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/brett_m.html
• Sally Brown, http://faculty.washington.edu/slb/
• Mike Dodd, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/dodd_m.html
• Alan Hamlet, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/hamlet_a.html
  • Erkan Istanbulluoglu, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/istandbulluoglu_e.html
  • Sue Kaufman-Una, http://directory.kingcounty.gov/EmployeeDetail.asp?EmpID=41127
  • Greg Korshin, http://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/bios/korshin_g.html
  • Erika Wagner, http://www.xprize.org/education-initiatives/x-prize-lab-mit
  • Dr. Ellen Lettvin joined Pacific Science Center in late 2008 as Vice President for Science and Education. In her former role as Assistant Director of Education and Outreach and Senior Oceanographer at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Ellen worked closely with Pacific Science Center on a variety of informal science education initiatives, such as Polar Science Weekend and our Carbon Monitoring project. At APL, Ellen was responsible for increasing the visibility of the lab, including in local and national K-12 educational communities and the regional entrepreneurial community. She initiated several innovative outreach efforts that have achieved a broad-reaching presence for APL. Ellen earned her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences from the University of Michigan, as well as an M.A. in Applied Statistics and B.S. in Geological Sciences.
  • Ben Slivka (www.slivka.com) has 20+ years of experience as a successful technology innovator and has spent much of the past 10 years assisting various non-profit and for-profit educational organizations. He was a Director of TeachFirst and previously served on the Advisory Board of UIEvolution and as a Director of Vizrea and GroundSpring.org. Ben spent 14 years at Microsoft, where he worked on OS/2, MS-DOS 6, Windows 95, the Java VM, and MSN. He started the Internet Explorer team in 1994 and led it through the release of IE version 3.0 in 1996. IE 3.0 beat Netscape 3.0 in press reviews and achieved 30% market share by the time IE 4.0 released in 1997. Ben installed Microsoft’s first production LAN in 1985, proposed the FAT32 file system in 1990, led the team that wrote the Win32 API specification in 1991, and started and led the team that created CAB software distribution files in 1993. His work at Microsoft resulted in 18 issued U.S. patents. Ben also worked brief stints at Amazon and IBM. Ben and his wife Lisa created the Wissner-Slivka Foundation in 1997, primarily focused on supporting education. His non-profit engagements include Bellevue Schools Foundation, Garfield High School Foundation, and Social Venture Partners, where he is the lead partner for Seattle MESA. Ben earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and a B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University, where he has served as a Trustee since 1998.
  • Erik Lindbergh, http://www.eriklindbergh.com/about.htm

X Prize in US Water Conservation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

By Chris LaRoche, MPA 2011

There are two approaches when addressing a ‘wicked’ problem like water: tackling the largest problem, or tackling the easiest one.  Unfortunately, the water problems of greatest impact –bringing water to the thirsty; reducing water waste through agricultural practices– are exceedingly difficult.  Conversely, the issues concerning US domestic water waste are not only relatively easy to tackle, but easy to solve; and solving these problems will result in huge reductions in water consumption.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
The United States has no single “water issue”, rather many of them. They include:

• Overpopulation in water stressed areas, specifically, the Southwest;
• Leaking pipes in municipal water systems;
• The practice of dumping usable recycled water instead of reusing it;
• Water-wasteful agricultural practices;
• Economic policies that promote water-intense crops;
• Municipal water laws that prohibit water saving measures;
• Municipal water rates don’t accurately reflect the true value of water,

Despite the plethora and diversity of problems, they share a few commonalities: the under-value of water, the lack of awareness of water, and the lack of political will to implement water saving policies.

Thus, we propose the X Prize for US Community Water Conservation to the local government (city, county, water district) that demonstrates the greatest proportional reduction in per capita water consumption while increasing local food production; judges will also consider equity and other additional benefits.
2. TEAM DEFINITION
In order to enter, teams must meet two requirements:

1-     Be an elected local government that can

2-     Measure its water consumption

Teams fall into three categories according to size (small, medium, and large); prizes are awarded as 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place.

3. METRICS

The primary focus of the competition is water use.  The first metric will be greatest decrease in proportional per capita water use, as measured by pre-existing, established and standardized methods.

A secondary metric of the competition is “local food production” and urban agriculture.  Aside from the natural connection between water and agriculture, local food production is included for a few reasons:

• As a means to address the issue of “embedded water consumption”: water used indirectly through food, products, and industry;
• An extension of embedded consumption- to prevent teams from simply “externalizing” (literally) their water consumption by importing food from another location.

Additionally, judges will consider “economic equity”, to ensure that a team’s solution is not detrimental to another party; “other additional benefits” is included as a means of capturing the whole story –what happens when communities change their habits?

5. PRIZE DISTRIBUTION
Having additional metrics complicates the task of deciding the winner.  The X Prize for US Community Water Conservation compensates for this fact by distributing many awards.  In additional to “Gold”, “Silver”, and “Bronze” in each of the three size categories, plus any other acknowledgement the judges see fit.  Possible other awards include “People’s Choice” and “Special Achievement”.

6. BENEFITS

The X Prize for US Community Conservation incorporates several key aspects of past X Prizes.  It tackles a “Grand Challenge” -US consumption habits; it stimulates economic activity; it rewards progress and achievement; its low barrier to entry and wide scope enable a large percentage of the US population to participate.  Finally, it places the onus of publicity and education on the competitors.

7. FLEXIBILITY

One great asset of this prize is its flexibility.  With slight modification, the prize can be adjusted to fit other stand-along entities, such as colleges and school districts.  It can be modified to target industrial water use (“to the factory that can reduce its water use”) or agricultural water use (“to the county that demonstrates the greatest reduction in water use while maintaining or increasing food production”). The metrics can be substituted to address social issues, such as childhood obesity and public health.

By looking at the proportional consumption habits of a pre-designated entities, the X Prize Foundation can conceive of many different prize possibilities.

The Sagar X-Prize: Empowering Irrigation

Team members:

Ahsan Ali

Akshay Bhagwatwar

Penelope Stanton

Tony Jiandong Hu

_________________________

We have developed a prize intended to incent innovation which will drastically improve the irrigation efficiency of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of South Asia. The region’s agriculture feeds 20% of the world’s population. With a plummeting water table and droughts of increasing frequency and severity, there is a pressing need for more efficient use of water. We have focused on the rice-wheat crop rotation. It is the region’s primary farming practice and is extremely water intensive. The two irrigation sources are canal water and tube wells. Farmers have no control over the availability of the canal water, it is infrequent and irregular. This creates an over-dependence on tube wells, which is depleting the water table. If control over access to canal water were decentralized and given to individual farmers and farming communities, it could be applied in a precise watering schedule dictated by best practices. This would not only drastically improve water efficiency, it would also increase crop yield.

The prize will be awarded to a system that can effectively collect and store a large amount of water from a canal in the periods which it is available, and deliver it to farms as it is needed. This would allow farmers to use a more frequent and conservative water schedule. Currently, if farmers have access to canal water (the upstream dam is open), they water their fields far beyond their needs due to uncertainty of future availability. Giving them the power to use it as they need it will promote implementation of best practices in agriculture. It will reverse the trend of the depleting water table, and provide a greater supply of canal water to farmers in the regions further downstream.

video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok9JhOrn7GI

Team H2OR: Water Replacement Prize

Team Members:

Hazelruth Adams, MPA 2013, Evans School of Public Affairs

Emily Oxenford, MSIM 2011, The Information School

Robert Racadio, MS 2011, Human Centered Design & Engineering

Paul Simons, MSIM 2011, The Information School

Prize Summary:

The proposed Water Replacement X PRIZE Challenge is designed to change the way we think about and use water through the development of new products and processes that replace the need for water and thus drastically reduce the use of water for residential and commercial uses.  The need for this challenge is best illustrated by a quote from the special report on water published May 20, 2010 in The Economist,  ”The proportion of people living chronically short of water, which stood at 8% (500m) at the turn of the 21st century, is set to rise to 45% (4 billion) by 2050.”

Prize Framework

In visioning our prize idea, we relied on the following principles that we hope this prize concept will address:

• Change the conversation about the water crisis in order to stimulate new ways of problem solving and innovation.
• Drive further investment into the space of water replacement technologies.
• Result in production-capable affordable products that will provide new and exciting alternatives to consumers.
• Support and recognize the work of the handful of inventors and companies that have already begun work in this critical area.
• Develop a new set of metrics that can be used across all products to indicate the amount of water used based on regular use.
• Attract competitors from around the world.
• Foster a sense of collaboration between teams.
• Put emphasis on environmentally sound solutions to this challenge in order to reduce unintended consequences of this change.
• Expand awareness of the water crisis across the world to prepare people for the changes to come.

Prize Overview:

Our hope is that the Water Replacement challenge will be announced on World Water Day in March of 2011.  Teams will then have 1 year to submit their prize concept for review.   Approved concepts will then be announced at a World Water Day Event in 2012.   Final judging will occur leading up to World Water Day in March of 2013 where first prize will be announced and the winning team will be awarded $10M.  In addition, a people’s choice prize will be awarded in the sum of $1M.

Who will Compete?

Because global water stress is faced by cities and countries on every continent, the competition is intended to attract competitors from around the globe.  During the first year of the competition, teams will have the opportunity to join other teams in order to refine or merge concepts that meet the criteria of the water replacement challenge.

Potential Partners

As for potential partners, a few companies have already shown initiative in addressing the world’s water issues including SABMiller, Nestle, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and IBM.  Any of these companies could potentially be interested in sponsoring most or all of the prize.

Prize Metrics:

• Estimated Water Use Table:  Because teams will be producing a wide range of products and processes, an official water use table will be developed by the Water Replacement Prize Committee.  This table will provide water use benchmarks for the teams to use when calculating how much their new technology will save.
• Water Replacement Index:  The water replacement index would be based on a table of benchmarks for how much water is used for a specific process.  The Water Replacement Index will be measured by the formula (new water consumption)/(previous water consumption) < 5%.  The previous water consumption figure in the formula will be derived from the estimated water use table.
• Total Water Efficiency
• Environmental Impact Scale
• Prize Economic Viability

Presentation:

Link to group presentation on Google Docs: Team Presentation (6/3/2010)

Prize Proposal:

Link to full prize proposal:  Water Replacement Proposal

Video:

Link to group video on YouTube:  Water Replacement Video

Youtube Video: US Community Conservation

The video is done!  On an aside, what is a better title, “US Community Conservation” or “US Community Water Conservation”?  At this point, I think it’s just a question of semantics, but the question has been raised.

Until I can figure out how to post a video to this blog, I’ll just include the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9J-NX0wwo

Meanwhile, a story about the Auto X Prize

This is an interesting, feel-good yet informative story on the Auto X Prize from the Christian Science Monitor.  Maybe one day they’ll have such story about the Water X Prize that will similarly inspire people to action.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2010/0524/West-Philadelphia-high-school-dares-to-build-a-100-m.p.g.-car

Preparing To Bring It All Together

It has been a fascinating journey from where we thought we would be going with our prize concept to where we’ve ended up. Each time we’ve shifted, it has been a growth from the solid foundation we’ve been building all quarter. As we work on finalizing the water-replacement and waterless technologies prize, we’ve been continuing to try and document the journey, perhaps the hardest thing about this prize challenge.

Where Our Group Is:

• Attempting to build our comprehensive summary to send out for more feedback from different individuals in different communities. This has proved to be quite the challenge, to create a clear understandable summary of how we want our prize to look like. Trying to find that balance between the problem and the proposal.
• Strengthening our problem and proposal with statistical data and framework. Check out the water resource links Paul posted – they’re very informative.
• Preparing a solid presentation is always harder than expected, but we’re trying to build an informative and engaging one.

We’re also looking forward to seeing where other groups have ended up, and to get some feedback on Thursday.

[Group: Paul, Hazelruth, Emily, and Robert]

The Economist – Special Report on Water

Normally I would provide a summary before sharing a link, but I will not have a chance to read it until later today.  The Economist has published a special report on the state of water, and it may provide some additional support for everyone’s prize concepts.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts on it later.

Economist Special Report on Water

-Paul

Raincatcher.org

I was doing some research and came across this site, Raincatcher.org, and I had to share it.

4th Prize Proposal: Community Conservation

A fourth group has emerged to pursue an additional proposal: The X Prize for US Community Conservation.

The prize is open to established local government within the United States (city, county, water district); the only criteria is that teams must be able to measure their per capita water use using standard, reliable, independently verifiable means (as many municipalities currently do).

Teams are divided by categories according to size (roughly large, medium, and small). Several awards in each category further entice competition.

The prize goes to the team (community) that demonstrates the greatest proportional reduction in per capita water use.  Metrics are taken from the teams’ own measurement of their “before” and “after” water use.

The prize stimulates investment, rewards activity and progress while encouraging teams to research and adopt current best practices.

It also promotes good governance and civic engagement in local government.  I’m willing to reckon that there are lots of other entities out there (like the US fed gov) that would be willing to contribute to this prize and, as they say, “make the prize wider”.

Finally, the prize is very flexible and adaptable: with slight variation (and further research) it can be modified to fit other countries that have high incidents of wasteful water practices.  It can be modified to target industrial water use (“to the factory that can reduce its water use” or something of the sort) or agricultural water use (“to the county that demonstrates the greatest reduction in water use while maintaining or increasing food production”) or even other metrics (“to the school district that demonstrates the greatest reduction in childhood obesity”).

Among the many questions and loose ends: how to incorporate food production into the prize?  Introduce it initially as a secondary metric? Leave it off until the end as possible other metrics?

Food production is an important and integral aspect of the prize: first, because of the obvious connection between food and water; second, as a means to address the issue of “embedded water consumption”: water used indirectly through food, products, and industry; and third -an extension of embedded consumption- to prevent teams from simply “externalizing” (literally) their water consumption by importing food from another location.

This may be simply a question of structure and syntax, but a befuddling one nonetheless.