InnoCentive and The Economist Partner to Advance Global Idea Generation

InnoCentive, Inc., the world leader in open innovation, announced a new partnership with the prestigious international business and economic news publication The Economist. In the coming months, InnoCentive and The Economist will work together to develop unique Challenges open to InnoCentive's global network of 200,000 Solvers, The Economist's millions of readers and the rest of the world.

"We are pleased to collaborate with InnoCentive on a series of Challenges intended to spark participation in the Ideas Economy event series," said Justin Hendrix, executive director of brand communications, events & media development for The Economist. "Using InnoCentive as a platform to spur ideation and seek solutions to challenges related to the issues and ideas explored in the Ideas Economy event series is a perfect way to bring to life the spirit of the The Economist and the purpose of InnoCentive -- to seek intelligent ideas that press forward and spur human progress."

Because human progress relies on the advancement of good ideas, The Economist is launching a new series of events under the banner of The Ideas Economy that brings together top thinkers from around the world to discuss and debate important ideas of our time. Focusing on innovation, intelligent infrastructure, and human potential, and other issues in future, the event series will seek to create an ecosystem where good ideas move from concept to implementation, fueled by the power of human ingenuity, and only the best survive.

"We are trying to tackle the most complex and dire issues facing humaninty -- how do you provide access to clean water in developing countries? How do you feed everyone in areas with burgeoning populations?" said Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive. "In our partnership with The Economist, these are the types of questions we will be asking. By tapping into the world's brightest minds for access to fresh and bold thinking we can empower real invention and meaningful growth."

About The Economist (http://www.economist.com/)

Edited in London since 1843, The Economist is a weekly international news and business publication offering clear reporting, commentary and analysis on world politics, business, finance, science, technology, culture, society, media and the arts. The Economist has a North American circulation of 813,000, a global circulation of more than 1.4 million and 4 million monthly unique visitors at Economist.com. Because of its international editorial perspective, it is read by more of the world's political and business leaders than any other magazine.

About the Ideas Economy Event Series

New in 2010 is the Ideas Economy event series. It will bring together journalists from The Economist with top thinkers from around the world to discuss and debate the most important ideas of our time; Innovation, Intelligent Infrastructure and Human Potential, and other issues. The inaugural event, "Innovation: Fresh thinking for the ideas economy," will be held in Berkeley, Calif. on March 23 and 24, 2010. For more information about Economist conferences and the Ideas Economy series, visit http://ideas.economist.com/.

About InnoCentive, Inc.

Since 2001, InnoCentive has helped corporate, government, and non-profit organizations to better innovate through crowdsourcing, strategic consulting services and internal Software-as-a-Service offerings. The company built the first global Web community for open innovation where organizations or "Seekers" submit complex problems or "Challenges" for resolution to a "Solver" community of more than 200,000 engineers, scientists, inventors, business professionals, and research organizations in more than 200 countries.

Prizes for winning solutions are financial awards up to US $1,000,000. Committed to unleashing diverse thinking, InnoCentive continues to introduce new products and services exemplifying a new corporate model where return to investors and individual passion go hand in hand with solving mankind's most pressing problems. http://www.innocentive.com/