Mindsumo Challenge Ideas

In 2016, APPA's Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) program will help public power solve three vexing industry challenges. Mindsumo, a crowdsourcing company, will help us harness the talents of more than 200,000 innovative, enthusiastic university scholars. These out-of-the box, deep thinkers will compete for cash prizes to find top solutions to the challenges we put before them. Their proposed solutions will help our industry discover new concepts, break-through ideas, and aid in pushing public power forward. We need your help to imagine and devise the challenges to assign to our university brain trust.

Consider the 6 initiatives from APPA's 2016-2018 Strategic Plan to guide your thoughts while creating your challenge ideas:
1. Raising awareness of public power: Partner with members to expand the value and knowledge of public power utilities in their communities.
2. Public power forward: Help members deal with new technologies and trends that are reshaping relationships between utilities and customers.
3. Increased federal regulation: Protect and advance member interests in the face of increase in energy policies and regulations that affect all areas of utility operations.
4. Security/cyber and physical preparedness: Help members develop an “all-hazards” approach to security, disaster preparation, and response.
5. Research and development: Enhance, expand, and leverage electric utility R&D and innovation projects and facilitate public power’s role as a driver of new technology.
6. Workforce development: Help members meet workforce challenges — attract and retain diverse new talent, train new employees, conduct succession planning, and transfer knowledge from departing employees.

Please fill out this survey to submit your ideas for the first MindSumo challenge.

First Name *This question is required.

Last Name *This question is required.

Title *This question is required.

Utility *This question is required.

Email Address *This question is required. This question requires a valid email address.

Describe any challenge topics of interest *This question is required.

Describe the output you'd like to see from students
E.g. content and format of responses *This question is required.

Regarding your challenge(s), are there things your organization has tried or things students should avoid? *This question is required.

What are the 2-3 most important criteria you would use for judging responses?
E.g. cost-effective, ease of implementation, environmentally friendly, etc. *This question is required.