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Innovation Exchange Inc. (IX) is an open innovation vendor. IX operates a website which acts as a platform for companies and non-profit organizations to present innovation challenges to a community of innovators. This community is constituted of individuals as well as small and midsize businesses. In contrast to vendors focused primarily on innovation in the physical sciences, Innovation Exchange fosters product, service, process, and business model innovation.

IX’s business model takes its inspiration from the work on open innovation and crowdsourcing performed by Henry Chesbrough, Wim Vanhaverbeke, Joel West, John Seely Brown, John Hegel, and Scott E. Page (Brown sits on IX’s advisory board). Open Innovation is increasingly seen as a key mechanism for developing new innovations.

IX acts as an “innovation intermediary”, meaning that it functions to match organizations seeking innovative products, services, processes or business models (“sponsors”) with individuals and organizations offering such innovations (“innovators”).

The mechanism for this intermediation is a challenge brief. The challenge brief is a short document, typically three to five pages in length, which provides background information about the innovation being sought and enumerates the elements that a response must include.

IX provides consulting services for the effective crafting of the brief, the pricing of the challenge, and the evaluation of submissions.

Competitors offering similar services include InnoCentive, Fellowforce, NineSigma, Yet2.com, and YourEncore.