Nesta UK Shares Their Experience with WE THINQ

Nesta is an innovation charity that helps bring great ideas to life. Back in April 2012 Nesta launched the Centre for Challenge Prizes and since then has run a number of open innovation and idea contests including the European Social Innovation Competition and the Waste Reduction Challenge Prize. We interviewed Jennifer Clayton, the coordinator of the Centre for Innovation Prizes, about her experience using the WE THINQ software to run innovation contests:

Q:What was the background and goal of your idea contest?

Nesta’s Centre for Challenge Prizes wanted to find people or groups that could: Create a new product, technology or service that utilises data to significantly improve the ability of households or small businesses to demonstrate measurable reduction in carbon emissions by shifting energy demand to off peak times or towards excess renewable generation.

Q:Are you satisified with the results?

YES! The plattform is simple, and captured/logged the data we required for the overall challenge. It was easy to use in terms of back end administration and entrants founds the forms accessible, for the most part.

Q: Did everything go according to plan? What surprised you?

I think there was slight confusion on how deep we wanted to go with the layers of online assessment and how sections moved on from each other. Looking back, I don’t think we needed two separate forms 1. For entry and 2. To sign up to Hack. This confused people.

Q:What did you like about using WE THINQ?

The simplicity of the back end and working with Christian and the WE THINQ team!

Q:How did the assessment of ideas work?

Really well – the flow of the assessment form worked well. We hired external people to interview a longlist of entrants, and after a 10 minute chat over the phone showing them the back end, all were completely comfortable filling in the fields. No one reported any technical glitches.

Q:How are the ideas being implemented?

The Finalists are now testing their prototypes. I post blog updates about their progression every month.

Q:Any final thoughts?

The WE THINQ platform can be adapted to your challenge, for a great price, in a sensible timeframe with beautiful results. The back end is simple and easy to maintain throughout different stages of a competition. Christian is a positive presence when wire framing the site gets confusing and heavy. He listens to the customer’s needs and works fast to achieve results.

Do you have any questions about Open Innovation Contests and the WE THINQ application? Let us know by commenting below!