BUFFALO GROVE, Ill. — Siemens has announced an open-technology challenge with JUMP, a joint initiative between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and five national laboratories. The online crowdsourcing community focuses on bridging the gap between cutting-edge building technology ideas and the marketplace.
The JUMP challenge involves defining the concept, use cases, and business models that could support the use of personal smart devices to interact with public spaces. While there has been explosive progress of interconnectivity and advanced applications controlled through personal devices in homes, automation, control, and ease of use for building occupants does not exist at the same level for commercial, public, or corporate spaces. Siemens seeks to engage the public in gathering ideas to tackle this challenge.
“Crowdsourcing innovations in building technology has the potential to generate the kinds of ideas that will push this industry forward by generations, rather than iterations,” said Dave Hopping, president of Siemens’ North American-based Building Technologies Division. “It’s a powerful way to harness the creative and competitive spirit of individuals, entrepreneurs, and small companies, enabling them to solve some of the challenges faced in our industry.”
The Siemens Building Technologies Division, which has initiated the challenge, is a leading provider of intelligent infrastructure solutions for commercial, industrial, and public buildings and spaces. The company helps its customers reach their energy efficiency and operational goals through implementation of smart technologies that leverage data and analytics for more efficient building operation, automation, comfort, fire safety, and security solutions.
As the industry partner, Siemens will sponsor a cash award of $5,000 for the top selected technology submission. The winning idea submitter may also be invited to discuss future collaboration with Siemens and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) technical experts about the potential to bring the idea to market. ORNL may provide up to $20,000 of in-kind technical support to enable ORNL staff to provide prototype development, testing, and/or third party validation. Additionally, participation in the DOE Small Business Voucher (SBV) pilot will also be discussed, through which ORNL may provide in-kind technical support of up to $300,000, if SBV approved.
JUMP is an online crowdsourcing community co-hosted by five DOE national laboratories and some of the top private companies in the buildings sector. Participating labs include Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and ORNL. JUMP stands for Join in the discussion, Unveil innovation, Motivate transformation, and Promote technology-to-market. The program’s goal is to broaden the pool of people from whom DOE seeks innovative ideas and to move these ideas to the marketplace faster. Over 900 community members are exploring advancements for appliances, building analytics and information systems, building envelope, heating and cooling systems, lighting, and sensors and controls.
The submission deadline for this challenge is Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, at 11:59 p.m. EDT.
Visit the JUMP campaign page to learn more.
Publication date: 8/17/2016
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