Dear participants of the Skin Prediction Challenge,
There have been some comments regarding our recent statement that concluded the challenge. We apologize if any participants have misunderstood this statement or feel treated unfairly. Allow us to try and explain the conclusion of this challenge.
As mentioned before, we in LEO Innovation Lab decided last year to try and crowdsource solutions to two difficult and ambitious challenges. If solved they could help millions of people living with a chronic skin condition. Knowing this we were also willing to award such solutions properly should they fulfill the criteria that such solutions must meet. As this was our first time taking on such initiative, we were very uncertain what to expect from using innovation tools such as crowdsourcing. That is also why we stated that we hoped we could find the resources to sponsor similar initiatives in the future. Carrying out an initiative like this is costly and time-consuming. As an organizer, you have various expenses in the form of fee's, labor costs, marketing expenses etc. thus our expectations for the outcome were high.
In the case of both challenges, much to our surprise, very few concepts, as well as prototypes, were submitted. Even so, we have been focused on giving back to the community and treat participants fairly. In our other challenge (Relieve Itch) we have chosen to reward one solution with a small research grant even though it didn't meet the challenge criteria. We saw future potential in their concept and prototype as well as potential relevance. Of course, we hoped we could do a similar thing in the Skin Prediction challenge but after consulting with various partners to be absolutely certain of our initial decision, we simply came to the conclusion that the solutions submitted didn't represent a path that we wish to pursue in LEO Innovation Lab, both in terms of the approach as well as technology and concept.
As you know choosing a challenge winner is not mandatory for a challenge sponsor/organizer. But exploiting ideas or prototypes of competitors that haven't been identified as winners of the competition is not an option. In accordance with the intellectual property agreement for this challenge, the IP of each submission remains the full ownership of the innovator. Only if the innovator is chosen as a winner does the Shared IP clause come into action.
We apologize for any misunderstandings there may have been and we can certainly announce the best solutions submitted if this is something that the community wants. We are also happy to provide feedback to the top 3 submissions. Lastly, we want to offer to set up a video conference/call with the top 3 prototype submissions to answer any questions you may still have. Please comment on this post if you are interested in this.
Sincerely,
LEO Innovation Lab
