Sony launches competition to "crowdsource" green tech ideas

Sony has today launched a global search to find green technology ideas from around the world, the best of which will be turned into reality by the electronics giant's designers and engineers.

The company has teamed up with environmental group WWF and design consultancy IDEO to launch the competition under the banner Open Planet Ideas and is now inviting proposals from designers, students and technology fans that could repurpose existing Sony technologies in order to deliver environmental benefits.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Sony spokeswoman Emily Nicoll explained that the company was not looking for ideas for new green products, but instead proposals that re-imagine how existing technologies could be re-used or "mashed up" together to help solve environmental problems.

She explained that the initiative was inspired by a similar competition for schoolchildren run by Sony last year, which resulted in the winning team from California integrating security cameras, wireless communication technology and solar panels to create an early warning network for detecting forest fires.

The initial phase of the Open Planet Ideas competition, which runs from today until the end of the month, will invite people to suggest environmental challenges that could be addressed by technology mash-ups.

A panel of judges from Sony, WWF and IDEO will select one particular challenge and provide a detailed brief for entrants in mid-October.

"We are looking for the real hot spots where we need technology to play a role in improving environmental performance, such as mobility and in the home," explained Dax Lovegrove, head of business relations at WWF. "We want to target low-carbon solutions at high-carbon activities."

Once the precise nature of the challenge has been finalised, participants will have until the end of November to submit their proposals on the Open Planet Ideas web site.

Tom Hulme, design director at IDEO, said the aim of the project was to " crowdsource" ideas from people in all walks of life and encourage them to collaborate on the development of the project. "The days of the lone genius are slowly disappearing and the ability to collaborate to tackle big problems, such as environmental issues, will become more and more important," he predicted, hailing the project as a prime example of effective online collaboration.

The eventual winner will be selected early next year from a shortlist of about 30 ideas, at which point the individual or team behind the winning concept will be invited to work with Sony designers and engineers to produce a prototype device.

Nicoll said the project was being run as a non-profit initiative by Sony and as a result it was aiming to develop a prototype to prove that the winning concept can work before then making the designs freely available to other organisations or businesses to build.

This article was produced in association with Sony