How Crowdsourcing Can Solve Local and Global Challenges

The world has a lot of problems. Luckily, the world also contains millions of creative, intelligent, forward-thinking people. The tricky part is bringing the best minds together to address the most pressing issues of our time. Thanks to modern technology, it’s easier than ever to scour the globe for the brightest people and the best solutions.

This process is called crowdsourcing, and it’s been around for a long time in one form or another. Companies use crowdsourcing for various reasons, from graphic design to gathering marketing insights and building customer contact lists of their most passionate advocates.

How Companies Crowdsource

With the proliferation of social media and the internet, it’s easier than ever to find crowdsourced solutions to company problems. All an organization needs is a challenge, an audience, and an incentive.

Let’s say you’re a clothing company looking for a new t-shirt design. If you want to take a crowdsourcing approach, simply post your favorite designs to your Facebook or Instagram account and ask your followers to vote. If you’d like to add an extra incentive, tell them that you’ll offer the winning design at a discount for a limited time after the contest closes.

You can also crowdsource talent. If you don’t have a t-shirt design in mind, ask your followers to design one for you. You’ll want to set up some caveats and guardrails since outsiders sometimes hijack these processes. Another crucial point is to offer a monetary prize (or at least something with real cash value). Thread manufacturer DMC Stitch made the mistake of asking for embroidery designs from their followers with no offer of payment, and they received some furious feedback as a result.

Some huge brands have been leveraging the collective wisdom of their customers to great success. One example is Coca-Cola’s “Freestyle” machines, which allow customers to create custom flavor combinations. Coca-Cola collected data from thousands of Freestyle machines, leading to the creation of orange-vanilla Coke and cranberry Sprite, which are now available on grocery shelves.

Crowdsourcing Solutions to Global Challenges

In recent years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been thinking bigger. The purpose of MIT’s Solve initiative is to create a worldwide marketplace for ideas through open innovation challenges. Challenges are funded by members who support the innovators and entrepreneurs, uniting them with MIT’s world-class innovation ecosystem to drive lasting change across the globe.

To date, MIT’s Solve initiative has committed $25 million to more than 200 partnerships across the MIT community. More than 6,500 people from 157 countries have submitted their ideas to Solve’s Global Challenges:

• Code Nation received a $1.5 million grant to help students in under-resourced schools on a tech career path.
• Grow Oyster Reefs received a $285,000 grant to protect coastal ecosystems.
• MediCapt received a $200,000 grant to change the way that law enforcement documents and prosecutes sexual assault.

How CSU Global is Helping Crowdsource Problems

We’re proud to announce that CSU Global is a Member of MIT’s Solve initiative. We’ve built a truly global community over the years, and we believe that it’s our responsibility to help anyone and everyone achieve their true potential, regardless of their background and circumstances. That’s why we’re co-sponsoring the Reimagining Pathways challenge with MIT Solve.

The path to success in the U.S. is an uneven one for millions of people. Millions of American workers face long-term unemployment or underemployment, low-paying or part-time jobs, ballooning student debt, and long-standing racial and gender injustices that have hampered their ability to succeed.

The Reimagining Pathways challenge aims to accelerate the path to employment across the United States, focusing on non-coastal states, interior regions of the country, and solutions that prioritize solutions to racial injustice. The challenge is seeking solutions that:

• Narrow the gap in resources and support afforded to Black, Indigenous, and Latinx entrepreneurs, who historically receive far less investment in both for-profit and non-profit sectors.
• Increase access to learning, skill-building, and training for people who want to expand their marketable skill set.
• Empower students to make more informed choices about which jobs and careers suit their skills and abilities, including employment pathways that do not include a traditional degree.

Innovation and technology have created unprecedented opportunities for America’s workforce, but there remains a disconnect between the options available and today’s workers’ ability to take advantage of them. With the help of MIT and our co-sponsors, CSU Global aims to bring aspiring workers closer to their new careers.

Get Started With CSU Global

Since our founding in 2007, CSU Global has remained committed to providing a high-quality, affordable education. If you’re working full-time, raising kids, or changing career paths, you need the flexibility and specialization that only an online degree can offer. If you’re ready to see what a degree or certificate from CSU Global can do for you, there’s no better time to get started.