At Purdue Research Park, there was recently (2007?) founded a non-profit venture to create an e-System called Enabling Innovation (EI) designed to inspire sustainable technological solutions by facilitating knowledge and technology transfer between developing communities with the support of educational institutions and service organizations. The core of EI's design is an online community which inspires, catalyzes, and disseminates innovation by providing local innovators visual representation of:
- geographical innovation dissemination and utilization,
- innovation evolution trees or adaptation/inspiration history,
- social networks between innovators,
- networks of symbiotic innovations or systems design.
The online community documents the evolution of innovation providing design inspiration from shared solutions of surrounding communities and access to local innovators, NGO's and academic resources to support sustainable solutions. Second, customized community or individual portals provide contextually relevant information to specific groups of users. Finally, this communication channel creates an opportunity for faculty and students to directly contribute to sustainable development while enhancing their understanding of key traditional topics in education via service learning.
External links
- Enabling Innovations website - currently empty (Is it still planned for launch?)