Open Innovation and Prize Challenge Management
Higher Ed Academic Challenges
NIA proudly manages a portfolio of cutting-edge competitions for NASA, including the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL), the Human Lander Challenge (HuLC), the Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, the Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, the bold and immersive RASC-AL Special Edition Challenges.
In collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NIA has also driven innovation in aviation through high-impact programs such as the FAA Challenge Student Competition, the FAA Data Challenge, and the Traffic Flow Management – Application Integration Design (TFM-AID) Challenge.
OPEN INNOVATION AND PRIZE CHALLENGE MANAGEMENT
How to work with NIA
NIA collaborates with partners to develop and design rigorous challenges for …
Understand the Challenge Domain
We are distinguished competition experts skilled in conducting problem decomposition with our clients.
Design Challenge Environment
We design clear and succinct challenge rules, requirements, constraints, contextual elements, and challenge themes with problem statements that are foundational to a high-impact competition.
Promote Program & Engage Solvers, including University Faculty and Students
We design interactive challenge websites with custom branding to reach, educate, and inspire participation. We strategically align with stakeholder media outlets to promote the competition and conduct targeted promotional marketing campaigns via our continually updated contact list of solvers in academia and industry.
Manage Challenge Judging & Evaluations
We facilitate and support challenge judging and submission scoring processes for a myriad of program deliverables. abstracts, technical papers, analogs and prototypes, print and digital media, presentations, physical models, and simulations. Judges are typically high-level subject matter experts in their fields from government, nonprofit research institutes and/or industry.
Support the Research Competition Community
We work closely with our clients and the solving community to ensure challenges are relevant and align with stakeholder goals. We additionally ensure satisfaction and achievement of results.
Deliver Results Through Culminating Events and Prizes
We execute rigorous virtual and in-person culminating competition events, ensure America COMPETES compliance, and fulfill prize awards, where applicable. Participation survey data and stakeholder interviews inform and ensure continuous improvement.