Case Study: General Electric (GE) achieves 70,000+ participants, 3,800+ ideas and $55M in funding with Brightidea

GE - Customer Case Study

General Electric launched the Ecomagination Challenge to accelerate development of next‑generation power‑grid technologies, tapping external entrepreneurs to complement its $10 billion Ecomagination commitment. Facing a large, fast‑moving market opportunity, GE and top VC partners committed $200 million and ran a global open innovation contest to quickly surface and evaluate breakthrough smart‑grid ideas.

Using Brightidea’s cloud platform for submissions, collaboration, voting and analytics — plus mobile and social integrations and expert review workflows — the 10‑week challenge drew 70,000 participants from 150+ countries, generating 3,844 ideas, ~80,000 comments and 120,000 votes. Twelve projects received $55 million in funding, additional prize awards were made (including five $100K grants and a popular $50K award), and GE solidified a scalable open‑innovation model for sourcing and funding new technologies.

GE

Jeffrey Immelt

Chairman, GE