Ideas Box Challenge Project

About this project

Airlines and aerospace companies have a general reputation for mediocre performance when it comes to capturing and reviewing creative sustainable aviation R&D ideas generated by the public. Some well known companies have even go so far as to post a standing request on their websites that asks the public not to submit ideas. Few airlines and aerospace companies have proven that they possess the capacity to filter the public's ideas and turn the good ones into action. This project will provide a solution. The Sustainable Aviation Ideas Box Challenge Project will be a simple yet effective mechanism to expose, extract, capture, evaluate and promote unique ideas from across the globe contributing towards the mission of sustainable aviation. The target market for this project will initially be in two categories: tertiary students and aviation industry professionals.

It will use a cash prize competition to incentivize and generate contributions plus an online repository to transparently publish and indefinitely house all ideas. Ideas will be added to a searchable online public library where they will be auto-categorised according to whom created them (eg. aviation sustainability manager, giving an indication of credibility), what they are (eg. fuel efficiency process improvement), when they are available (eg. solution already commercially available) where they are available (eg. available globally), what the impact of global implementation would be (eg. 1% fuel efficiency improvement for every airline that adopts) and then ranked on a matrix of sustainability versus cost benefit. The will be ranked using a facebook style 'like' mechanism that will have an 'expert' ranking and a 'public' ranking, similar to imdb.com's critic and user rankings. Ideas could be physical products, process improvements, new services, new systems or online solutions. To award the prizes, Sustainable Sky will award prizes to the best ideas according to pre-determined judging criteria. Sustainable Sky industry partners will be invited to connect with the winners to collaboratively develop the ideas and bring them to life. There may be an opportunity to build this platform utilising a licenced version of the www.ideapod.com platform. Similarly, www.ideamarket.com is an ideas, talent and funding crowd-sourcing platform that could be leveraged to help get the smaller (<$1m start-up capital required) standalone ideas into development.

Preliminary forecast costs
Capital: US$400k
Operating: US$200k p.a.
Project Duration: Ongoing