Case Study: General Fusion achieves breakthrough engineering solutions and global crowdsourced expertise with Wazoku

General Fusion - Customer Case Study

General Fusion, a company developing clean fusion energy, ran a pilot of three open-innovation Challenges with InnoCentive across plasma science, mechanical engineering and engineering physics to solve specific technical hurdles. The program attracted hundreds of project rooms and dozens of submissions from around the world, and offered a total of $36,500 in awards to source fresh ideas outside their usual networks.

The Challenges produced concrete outcomes: $20,000 went to an MIT-trained mechanical engineer whose sealing design is being contracted for integration; $6,500 was split between two solvers (one a technical Oscar winner) for a data-driven plasma performance predictor that prompted follow-on collaboration talks; and $10,000 rewarded three novel ideas for a fast current switch. Overall General Fusion gained implementable solutions, new partnership opportunities and increased media interest.

General Fusion

Brendan Cassidy

Open Innovation Manager