Lisburn, Northern Ireland – April 13th 2015 – Disability specialists Leckey and Firefly have worked with innovation software provider Qmarkets, to develop a platform which allows anyone to contribute ideas for new products aimed at children with special needs.
This open innovation platform uses the concept of crowdsourcing, to facilitate collaboration and capture ideas from across the globe. Qmarkets have provided fully configured innovation management solutions such as this one to hundreds of organizations since 2006, however few have been for such a great cause.
“We are extremely proud to be a part of this project, and look forward to seeing the life changing results of this collaboration” said Noam Danon, CEO and founder of Qmarkets. “While idea management has become prevalent within the pharmaceutical and financial sectors, it can be incredibly beneficial to organizations across all vertical markets. So we hope more companies will get creative, and investigate how they could be utilizing collective intelligence”
Leckey and Firefly realized the potential value of an open innovation platform while working with the parent of a disabled child to design a product called “Upsee”, which is now available in over 120 countries. Upsee is a device which allows children with neuromuscular disorders to stand up and walk with the help of an adult.
The Hatch platform allows anyone to easily submit ideas for products such as Upsee, before allowing the audience to vote for the best submissions in a social-media-style forum.
These ideas are then evaluated by an experts panel, including Engineers and Therapists as well as Parents, who then select the best ideas for commercial development.
Users whose ideas become real products are able to earn a percentage in royalties, while there will also be prizes for the users who earn the most “Hatch-points” through contribution on the website.
CEO James Leckey said, “We’ve learnt from experience that we’re better together. We receive ideas for new products on a daily basis from a wide range of people including therapists, parents and designers.
These ideas show remarkable creativity and skill. Hatch will give us the structure needed to properly review these product ideas, but more importantly find out from the special needs community which of them will change lives.”
To get involved or learn more, visit www.hatchthatidea.com
