Agencies turn to challenges to find innovation

Federal agencies are planning to implement challenges, contests and prizes more often when it comes to developing solutions to their problems, as challenges allow agencies to pay only for results outside of the traditional procurement process, Federal Times reports.

“Agencies need to keep seeking new ways to use prizes as tools to advance their missions and help solve the great challenges facing societies today,” John Holden, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy was quoted as saying.

One method of integrating challenges in the solutions development process is by utilizing Challenge.gov, which agencies have tapped to support more than 300 contests, and which has drawn 42,000 participants and 3.6 million visits to the website, GSA reported. One such challenge was a 2009 award by NASA to anyone who could develop a more flexible astronaut glove capable of performing a wide array of tasks in the vacuum space.