Jeff davis top coder 12 3 2012 final

Collaboration and Open Innovation at
NASA

TopCoder
December 3, 2012
Jeffrey R. Davis, MD
Elizabeth E. Richard

Human Health and Performance
Exploring Space | Enhancing Life

Organizational Approach
• Discussion Topics
– Strategy to Execution and Results
• Human Health and Performance organization
• Strategic plan and implementation
• Open Innovation Pilots and Results
• NASA Human Health and Performance Center
• NASA Center of Excellence for Collaborative
Innovation
– Forward Work
• Solution Management Tool
• Human Capital Discussion Points
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• Human Health and Performance - Exploring Space,
Enhancing Life
– Space and Clinical Operations
• Health care and medical systems
– Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences
• Physiological, environmental and behavioral effects of spaceflight
– Human Systems Engineering and Development
• Human centered design (hardware/software), human factors, food systems

• Human-centered risk management
– Space Flight Human System standards and requirements
• Strategy formulation and execution
– Open collaboration and innovation management
– Public-private partnerships
3

Strategic Initiatives

2006 Visioning Workshop
HQ lead office for life sciences Minimum necessary services
Assumption: Assumptions
Low likelihood of returning in Program need to reduce costs
next 10 years Program buy it by the yard
Characteristics Characteristics
Central budget, Fundamental Outsourcing
research, NRA’s, grants Minimal R&D
NASA funded partnerships Few partners
Some institutional costs
provided by program Partner/shared services model
Assumptions
Core capabilities not funded by
institution
Current state Rapid external pace of change
Assumptions
Characteristics
Current resources, no growth
Consulting, high-end expertise,
Characteristics
Partners fill in low CRL/TRL work
Focused R+D on TRL/CRL 4-6
Leverage with partners
Inflation, escalation erode content
Little low TRL/CRL work
4


• 2007 SLSD Strategic Plan

– Mission Statement
“To optimize human health and productivity for space
exploration“
– Vision Statement
"To become the recognized world leader in human health,
performance and productivity for space exploration”
– Strategic Goals
o Manage balanced internal/external portfolio
o Drive health innovations
o Drive human system integration innovations
o Educate and inspire
5 5


• 2012 HH&P Strategic Plan
– Mission
“HH&P capabilities enable optimization of human health and
performance throughout all phases of spaceflight”
– Vision
“HH&P leads the world in human health and performance
innovations for life in space and on Earth”
Since 2007, we have also made significant advances
– External collaboration and implementation of new business models within the directorate
and the Agency
– Established two virtual centers, the NASA Human Health and Performance Center and the
Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation.
– 2012 Strategy builds upon these successes to address the Agency’s increased emphasis on
societal relevance and being a leader in research and development and innovative
business and communications practices
6 6

Balanced Portfolio – portfolio mapping

• Portfolio mapping – Dr. Gary Pisano,
Harvard Business School (HBS)
o “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You” –
Harvard Business Review, December 2008
o Workshop conducted by Dr. Pisano with NASA
– Wyle leadership team June - July 2009
o Analyzed 12 gaps for collaborative opportunity
– clarified gaps for internal or external
development
7

Portfolio Analysis: Mapping -
Models of Collaboration

From Gary Pisano, Harvard Business School
8

Internal Innovation – “Elite Circle”

• Internal Innovation Projects

o New development – intravenous fluid from
potable water

o Modified technology – colorimetric water
analysis (formerly a device to evaluate paint
color)

9

Exploration Medical Capability

IntraVenous fluid GENeration
for exploration (IVGEN)
PRODUCE USP GRADE 0.9% NORMAL SALINE FROM IN
SITU RESOURCES

• IV fluid required to respond to medical
contingencies

• Filter to generate fluid incurs a smaller mass
and volume cost than the actual fluid

• System based on deionization and sterilizing
filters

FLIGHT TEST: MAY 4-7, 2010
10
10

Environmental Monitoring - Colorimetric
Water Quality Monitoring Kit

Hardware Description
• Solution is a simple, compact, hand-held device that
reliably and rapidly measures key water quality
indicators in-flight
• Water sample is passed through membrane
cartridge resulting in color change on membrane
surface in the presence of silver or iodine
• Commercially available Diffuse Reflectance
Spectrophotometer (DRS) measures magnitude of
color change, which is proportional to the amount
of analyte present in sample volume
• CSPE water quality monitoring kit was delivered to
ISS on STS 128/17A

11

External innovation - open

• Why open collaboration/innovation?
• Joy’s Law
• “No Matter Who You Are, Most of the Smartest People Work for
Someone Else”
– Bill Joy, Cofounder Sun Microsystems

• The Causal Explanation for Joy’s Law
• Knowledge is unevenly distributed in society - Fredrich von Hayek
(1945)
• Knowledge is sticky - Eric von Hippel (1994)

from Karim Lakhani, PhD Harvard Business School
12

Open Innovation
• Open innovation and collaboration– four pilot projects
– utilized the gaps from G Pisano workshop
– Conducted fall of 2009 – fall 2010

• InnoCentive- posts individual challenges/gaps to their established network of
solvers (~300,000)
• financial award if the solution is found viable by the posting entity

• Yet2.com- acts as an actual technology scout bringing together buyers and sellers
of technologies
• Option to develop partnerships

• TopCoder - open innovation software company with a large network of solvers
(~300,000)
• variety of skill-based software coding competitions

• NASA@work-internal collaboration platform leveraging expertise found across
NASA’s 10 centers

13

NASA Pavilion on InnoCentive

Global Appeal-

2900 solvers
80 Countries
14

InnoCentive Pilot Results
Proj Award Award
Challenge Title Ctr Posted Deadline Sub
Rms Date Amount
Improved Barrier Layers … JSC -
12/18/2009 2/28/2010 174 22 5/7/2010 $11,000
Keeping Food Fresh in Space SLSD

Mechanism for a Compact
JSC -
Aerobic Resistive Exercise 12/18/2009 2/28/2010 564 95 5/14/2010 $20,000
SLSD
Device
Data-Driven Forecasting of JSC -
12/22/2009 3/22/2010 579 11 5/13/2010 $30,000
Solar Events SLSD
Coordination of Sensor
Swarms for Extraterrestrial LRC 2/27/2010 4/26/2010 423 37 6/4/2010 $18,000 (3)
Research
Medical Consumables
GRC 5/17/2010 7/27/2010 365 56 10/28/2010 $15,000 (3)
Tracking
Augmenting the Exercise JSC -
5/27/2010 7/27/2010 229 18 9/20/2010 $10,000
Experience SLSD
Simple Microgravity Laundry JSC -
5/27/2010 7/27/2010 598
Human Health and Performance 108 9/21/2010 $7,500
System EA 15

Yet2.com example: Bone Imaging

Germany 6
Austria 1
Japan 7
Canada 1
France 6
Israel 1
Australia 3
Belgium 1
UK 5
Switzerland 4
Sweden 1
USA 15
Total 51

16
Exploring Space |16
Page Enhancing Life

yet2.com Pilot Results
Technical Need No. of total No. of hits Active leads
replies/leads (initial interest)

Bone Density Measurement 51 793 5

Monitoring of Water and 61 2003 8
Biocides

Radioprotectants 28 475 6

Exoterrestrial Life 31 1596 1
Differentiation

Food Packaging/Protection 29 173 5

Portable Imaging 34 581 5

17

TopCoder Experience
• Opportunity presented to NASA by Harvard Business School

• Research project to compare outcomes of collaborative and competitive teams

• NASA provided the problem statement
• Optimize algorithm that supports medical kit design

• Competition began on 11/04/2009 and lasted approximately 10 days

• 2800 solutions were submitted by 480 individuals

• Useful algorithm developed and incorporated into NASA model

• Team felt this process was more efficient than internal development

• Next steps – NASA Tournament Lab with HBS and TopCoder developed to seek many
novel optimization algorithms for ISS

18

NASA@work

19

NASA@work Center Participation

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NASA@Work
• Early Findings
• Connected 10 NASA centers horizontally (peer to
peer)
• Connected areas of expertise previously untapped
• Enthusiasm for the pilot and willingness to use again
• Positive comments about NASA trying a new business
model
• Solid solutions for some technical problems

21

What is NASA Tournament Lab?
Operational Virtual Facility developed between NASA, Harvard, and TopCoder

Two Objectives –

1 What is……..
Create novel, high quality working software for algorithmic /
computational Challenges

2 Contribute towards the development of empirically validated science
of innovation tournaments

Utilize the principles of distributed innovation to allow participants worldwide to

What is……..
contribute to solving mission challenges by developing innovative computational
algorithms.
22 Exploring Space | Enhancing Life

What is……..

23

Other Collaboration Methods

• Rice Business Plan Competition
– 42 MBA/technical student teams
– Offered life science prize for earth/space benefits
• 5 teams awarded since 2008
• 2 teams have secured funding
– Series A funding
– USDA grant

• NASA Human Health and Performance Center
• Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation

24

Beyond the pilot stage and forward
work
• Organizational home for collaboration
• Virtual Centers
– NASA Human Health and Performance Center
• Products and projects
– Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation
• NASA Prizes (example using all platforms)
• Other federal agency prizes
• NASA@Work - expanded participation
– Solution Mechanism Guidance Tool
– Human Capital considerations
25

HH&P Innovation Initiatives

26

NASA Human Health and
Performance Center
• Established October 2010
• Membership
– 117 members: http://nhhpc.nasa.gov
– Three workshops
• January 2011 – Collaborative Innovation: Strategies and Best
Practices
• October 2011 - Connecting Through Collaboration
• June 2012 - mHealth - Smart Media and Health: Applications
Benefiting Life in Space and on Earth
• Planned new workshop for public-private partnerships and
accelerated innovation – June 12, 2013
– Innovation Lecture Series
– Member to Member Connects
– Collaborative project opportunities posted by members
– Projects organized and tracked by NASA new initiatives
27

HH&P Collaborative Innovation
Inside the “Innovation Box”
The CoECI
• A multi-organizational entity
stood up at the behest of the
Office of Science and Technology
Policy to further advance the use
of open innovation methods
across the federal government, in
particular, the use of prizes and
challenges.
– CoECI is HQ owned; HH&P
supports operations
– External Engagements:
Reimbursable Interagency
Agreements (IAA’s) executed at HQ
– Internal Focus: Organizations fund
challenges for InnoCentive and
yet2.com

28

CoECI – NASA
HH&P: Challenges Close to Home
• NASA@work Challenges in Development:
– David Fitts: Utilizing NASA@work in conjunction with Human Systems
Integration effort (challenge topic: metric development)
– Kerry Lee: Seeking solutions that will protect astronauts from Galactic Cosmic
Rays on long duration missions (challenge topic: radiation protection)
– All OCT funded

Non-invasive Measurement of
Intracranial Pressure

• Challenge Topic: sought to identify
an efficient non-invasive
technology to measure ICP
• Results: three submissions were
awarded (one recommended use
of EEG and the other two provided
new leads of researchers in this
field (Dr. Heldt & Dr. Alloca)
29

CoECI – NASA
• Tech Scout, yet2.com
– Challenge Owner: Jennifer Villareal,
Susi Zanello
– Non-invasive Intracranial Pressure
(ICP) Monitoring System: The aim
is to find a novel, non-invasive
technological approach to intra-
cranial pressure (ICP)
measurement. NASA prefers new
technologies, but variations of
existing technologies that
represent major improvements
relevant to the extreme
environments of space and
planetary exploration will be
considered. Conventional hospital-
setting equipment,
instrumentation intended to be
miniaturized, and for medical-care
applications by trained but non-
medical personnel for use in
remote environments will also be
considered.
– Schedule: Live on yet2.com
– OCT Funded: Human Health and Performance
30

CoECI - NASA
• NASA Innovation Pavilion,
InnoCentive
– Challenge Owner: Jennifer
Villareal, Susi Zanello
– Challenge Summary: Theoretical,
NASA would like to monitor ICP
non-invasively with an accuracy
that is close to the terrestrial
gold standard of lumbar
puncture.
– HH&P Funded: Partnership
between research and
operations
– Schedule: Little further behind.

31

CoECI - NASA
• NASA Tournament Lab (NTL)
– Challenge Owner: Todd Schlegel
– Challenge: Portable
Electrocardiogram App
• Create a mobile, Android-based 12-
lead ECG data viewer
• Advance cheap, mobile medical
applications
• Implications for both space medicine
and 3rd-world countries
• Used a range of competition types
for full application build
– Schedule: August, 2011; still in
work, Bluetooth technology
changed, caused hiccups
– Prize: $22K
– Funded by NTL, HEOMD

32

CoECI – other federal agencies
Other Agency Agreements
• NASA Tournament Lab (NTL)
– USPTO: image processing contest
designed to help determine how
labels on a drawing relate to
patent text intended to increase
productivity and reduce extra
scanning efforts.
– CMS: Produce a shared services
solution that States can use to
verify Medicaid provider
eligibility.
– CMS2: in work
– EPA: in work

33

NASA@Work
• NASA@work is an agency-wide, virtual platform
that seeks to increase innovation by fostering The NASA@work Process:
• Suggested challenge submitted directly
collaboration within our community through the into https://nasa.innocentive.com
contribution of interactive discussions and the • The NASA@work Program Champion and
submission of solutions to posted challenges the Innocentive.com support team
develop and refine challenge (identify
• Challenge Types for NASA@work include Challenge Owner) (2-3 weeks)
• Challenge is reviewed by an
generating new ideas, developing new assigned Technical Reviewer
concepts, adding structure and/or • Content of challenge is submitted
through Export Control if required
definition to challenge or problem • Once challenge is open, Challenge Owner
actively participates in discussion and
• To date, have run over 35 challenges with responds to questions and comments that
over 65 winners across all NASA Centers solvers may have throughout the active
challenge cycle (4-6 weeks)
• Once challenge is closed, Challenge Owner
Quick Facts about NASA@work: completes evaluation of submitted
• As of August, 2012, have over 8150 solvers in the community solutions, selects winner(s), and completes
• Since re-launch in November 2011, have experienced a assessments that evaluate utility of the
• 33% growth in the solver community platform (2 weeks)
• over 160% increase in active participation from solvers on the
platform (over 460 active solvers)
Human Health and Performance 34
34

NASA@Work
*Steady Increase in
Number of Solvers
and Active Solvers in
October

NASA@work Community of Solvers
318 8520
8505
316 316
8500

314
8474 8480
313
312
8460
310 310
8440
8428
308
8420
306 8405
305 8400
304

8380
302

300 8360

298 8340
10/5/2012 10/12/2012 10/19/2012 10/26/2012

10/5/2012 10/12/12 10/19/12 10/26/12
Solvers 8405 8428 8474 8505
Active Solvers 305
310 313 316

Solution Mechanism Guidance Tool

• Under development within HH&P
– Determine how to use established and novel
problem solving tools for problem solving and
project management
– Working group of multiple disciplines
– Will identify opportunities and barriers, and
training needed to implement
– Planned test of tool February 2013

36

Human Capital
• Areas for discussion
– Culture
• “not invented here”
– Rewards
• Extrinsic
• Intrinsic
– Time
• Multi-disciplinary participation (e.g. NASA@Work) beyond
ideation challenges (true projects)
– Training
• Project management training that includes novel tools
• For example, newly established Human System Academy
offering four certificate programs (one is in Innovation)
37

Summary

• NASA’s HH&P organizational approach to
collaboration and open innovation
– Strategy required to drive change
– New problem solving techniques need to be
identified – collaboration and open innovation
– Start with pilots and communicate results
– Develop a tool to guide project managers in selecting
problem-solving tools from existing and new
approaches
– Strategic communication

38

Jeff davis top coder 12 3 2012 final

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