MIT IDE Inclusive Innovation Competition Announces New Judges and Partners

The IIC will award $1 million to organizations that are inventing a more inclusive, productive, and sustainable future for all by focusing on improving economic opportunity for middle- and base-level income earners. Both for-profit and non-profit organizations of any size, age, type and nationality are encouraged to apply. Organizations will be judged on how well they have harnessed the modern toolkit of technology and developed breakthrough approaches that raise economic prospects for middle- and base-level income earners.

Two pools of judges will rate and select winners from the applying organizations. These include a panel of approximately 30 Core Judges and a smaller Champion Committee comprised of the IDE Advisory Board and other industry experts.

New participating Core Judges include:

• Brandon Avrutin (Partner, Rethink Education)
• Scott Bailey (Managing Director, MassChallenge)
• Christopher Cozzone (Vice President, Bain Capital)
• Tanner Hackett (Co-Founder, Button)
• Isabelle Hau (Venture Partner, Omidyar Network)
• Sameer Kalwani (Founder, Element Analytics)
• Kathleen Kennedy (President, Technology Review)
• Jess Knox (Founder and President, Olympico Strategies)
• Alison Omens (Advisor, Private Sector Engagement, Department of Labor)
• Kelsey Robinson (Associate Principal, McKinsey)
• Travis Sheridan (Executive Director, The Venture Café)
• Jeff Vockrodt (Associate Asst. Secretary for Policy, Department of Labor)
• Elizabeth Weingarten (Deputy Director, New America)

New participating Champion Committee Judges are:

• Christopher Lu (Deputy Secretary, Department of Labor)
• Judith Rodin (President, The Rockefeller Foundation)

The IIC is also developing partnerships with organizations that are dedicated to the IIC mission and helping to increase awareness of the competition. New participating IIC Partners include:

• The Cambridge Innovation Center
• MassChallenge
• New America
• The On-Demand Economy
• The Venture Café
• Village Capital

Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT Sloan professor and director of the IDE says, "IIC Judges and Partners play an essential role in identifying the organizations that are harnessing digital innovations to create shared prosperity. The IDE and IIC are excited to team up with these amazing people to celebrate innovators that are lifting the economic prospects for everyone in the Second Machine Age."

Elizabeth Weingarten, deputy director of New America and IIC Judge, says "For New America, a crucial piece of our mission 'to renew America in the digital age so that all Americans can thrive' is pushing for inclusive technological advancement — in other words, innovation that takes into account the experiences and needs of our increasingly diverse population. We're thrilled to be part of the IIC."

A full list of participating IIC Judges and Partners can be found at MITinclusiveinnovation.com 

Applicants must register by June 1, 2016 and submit applications by June 15, 2016 when the competition closes. Winners will be selected on September 6, 2016 and announced in partnership with MIT SOLVE (solve.mit.edu) during Boston's HUBweek (hubweekboston.com) at the end of September. More details will be announced in June.

A total of $1 million will be awarded to organizations that compete in four categories: Skills; Matching; Humans + Machines; and New Models. Detailed information about the categories can be found on IDE's Medium publication at medium.com/mit-initiative-on-the-digital-economy

Developed in collaboration with the MIT Innovation Initiative (MITii), the competition is being funded with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the NASDAQ foundation, and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

For more information on the IIC competition, please visit www.MITinclusiveinnovation.com        

The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) explores how people and businesses will work, interact, and prosper in an era of profound digital transformation. Working alone and with public and private sector partners, the IDE supports and conducts groundbreaking research in the areas of productivity and employment, big data, new digital business models, and social analytics. For more information, visit http://mitsloan.mit.edu/ide.

The MIT Innovation Initiative (MITii) is an Institute-wide agenda to educate the next generation of global innovators, preparing them to move ideas to impact more effectively throughout their lives by combining hands-on "innovation practice" opportunities for building expertise in the innovation process with evidence-based insights developed from innovation science research. For more information, visit https://innovation.mit.edu/.

The MIT Sloan School of Management is where smart, independent leaders come together to solve problems, create new organizations, and improve the world. Learn more at mitsloan.mit.edu.

For further information, contact:
Media Contact: Paul Denning – [email protected]
IDE Contact: David Verrill – [email protected]
Inclusive Innovation Competition Contact:  Devin Wardell Cook – [email protected]
MIT Innovation Initiative Contact:  Steve Haraguchi – [email protected]    

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SOURCE MIT Sloan School of Management

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