Open Alchemy was really inspiring. It was incredible to see how well people sparked off one another and built on each other’s ideas.David Rajan, Director Partners Channels, Oracle
Open Alchemy was supplier-led innovation featuring some of the UK’s most high-profile corporates, united by a desire to be one step ahead of fast-moving business needs. Each enterprise that participated in the project operates in a different sector, but all are linked as customers of Oracle, the world’s largest enterprise software company.
NESTA, 100% Open and Oracle designed a programme that harnessed the energy of different perspectives and diverse corporate cultures to spark radical new ideas. Facilitated by Innovaro, Open Alchemy took known business challenges that the near future will throw at us and pooled some of the most innovative minds in the UK to turn these challenges into significant opportunities.
On order to engage the grassroots company workforces a collaborative innovation site was designed, http://www.openalchemy.co.uk. This uses multi-media stimulus, an informal style and a conversational approach to encourage contributions.
Open Alchemy has led to several major collaborative projects including WellBe – an alliance between Oracle, the NHS, Pfizer, BBC, BT and others. This is designed to incentivise the public to adopt healthier behaviours in return for discounts on products and services. It is now undergoing rapid development due to launch in time for the London 2012 Olympics. Also, the programme led to Oracle Alchemy, an in-house innovation system as well as a collaboration product under development with the NHS and semantic web SME LikeCube.
