OmniCompete
Encyclopedia
OmniCompete
OmniCompete
Type Private
Industry Open Innovation
Open Innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...

, R&D,
Founded 2006
Headquarters London, UK
Key People Simon Schneider - CEO, Janeen Chupa-Brimacombe - Chairwoman
Products Innovation
Website http://www.omnicompete.com/

OmniCompete

OmniCompete is an organisation specialising in the design and implementation of innovation competition
Innovation competition
An innovation competition is a method or process of the industrial process, product or business development. It is a form of social engineering, which focuses to the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas, coming from the best innovators....

s. It promotes Open Innovation
Open Innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...

 through various prize challenges worldwide, offering financial rewards to successful innovators from across a diverse range of industries and sectors. Previous and ongoing competitions include the Global Security Challenge
Global Security Challenge
The Global Security Challenge runs international business plan competitions to find and select the most promising security technology startups in the world. The GSC holds regional selection events and a Security Summit in London to bring together innovators with government, industry and investors...

, the Energy Storage Challenge
Energy Storage Challenge
The Energy Storage Challenge runs international business plan competitions to find and select the most promising energy storage technology startups in the world. The ESC holds selection events and a Energy Storage Challenge Summit in London to bring together innovators with government, industry...

, the Cyber Security Challenge and the Health Pitch Battlefield.

History

The idea behind OmniCompete and its predecessor company, Global Security Challenge
Global Security Challenge
The Global Security Challenge runs international business plan competitions to find and select the most promising security technology startups in the world. The GSC holds regional selection events and a Security Summit in London to bring together innovators with government, industry and investors...

 (GSC) was developed at London Business School
London Business School
London Business School is an international business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London, located in central London, beside Regent's Park...

 in 2005, where the founders met during their MBAs. Simon Schneider and Janeen Chupa-Brimacombe founded the Global Security Challenge in 2006 and the competition has run annually since then. Building on this foundation in the security sector, the organisation has expanded into other areas, initiating the Energy Storage Challenge
Energy Storage Challenge
The Energy Storage Challenge runs international business plan competitions to find and select the most promising energy storage technology startups in the world. The ESC holds selection events and a Energy Storage Challenge Summit in London to bring together innovators with government, industry...

 and Health Division in 2010. The umbrella company, OmniCompete Limited, was founded in 2010 and US subsidiary OmniCompete Inc. was incorporated in 2011.

Company

OmniCompete is based in London, UK. Its board members include the honourable H. Lee Buchanan III
H. Lee Buchanan III
Herbert Lee Buchanan III was United States Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1998 to 2001.-Biography:...

, who used to be Deputy Director of DARPA before his current role as VC at Paladin Capital Group.

OmniCompete has hosted over 20 international competitions in the areas of security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...

, energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, social innovation
Social innovation
Social innovation refers to new strategies, concepts, ideas and organizations that meet social needs of all kinds - from working conditions and education to community development and health - and that extend and strengthen civil society....

 and cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....

, with over $2.9 million in prizes.

OmniCompete organises various events in connection with the competitions it runs. Over $750,000 in prize funds will be awarded at PitchLive in London in October 2011. Winners and finalists have generated $117.05 million in investment and acquisitions subsequent to competing in OmniCompete challenges.

Winners and Finalists

Over the past five years, OmniCompete has awarded many prizes to a wide range of innovative startups and SMEs. Previous winners include:
  • Australian SME iwebgate who received the 2010 Best Security SME Prize ($300,000 prize fund) for the development of an online security product which represents a virtual, highly-secure reception area between an organisations' trusted network and volatile public networks like the Internet.

  • Ghanaian startup mPedigree won the Best Security Startup 2010 award - for developing the first system in the world which enables consumers and patients to verify the authenticity of their medicines by sending a free text message of the unique, product-embossed codes.

  • Kromek who won Best Security SME 2009 for developing a threat liquid identification system (bottle scanner) which can deal with individual containers and also a unit for screening multiple containers in a 311 bag configuration.

  • Ksplice, who won the 2009 Cyber Security Challenge for developing software that improves security, reliability and maintainability through seamless updates. Ksplice was recently acquired by Oracle.


Winners and finalists have often secured investments and acquisition deals through their participation in OmniCompete competitions. Former Global Security Challenge finalist TenCube was recently acquired by McAfee. Vumii, Secerno and DecaWave provide more examples of finalists who have since raised significant funding.

External links



The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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