Przirembel Prize
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| Award: | Open innovation creates game changing opportunities at the intersections of diverse organizations with evolving needs and advancing capabilities. Institutional and cultural barriers must be overcome working with others who have different values, incentives and timelines. The Przirembel Prize recognizes collaborations in the southeastern United States which are recognized as significant by those outside the region. |  2011 Przirembel Prize Winner - SSC Atlantic’s Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle integration team | |
The process of identifying and selecting recipients for the Przirembel Prize
No one organization ever receives a Przirembel Prize, but it is always awarded to multiple organizations as a part of a collaboration. The second annual award will be presented at annual InnoVenture Conference on May 8, 2012. |
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| 2011 Honorees: |
Applications were received in 2011 from a strong base of innovative organizations, including the 2011 winner, finalists and honorable mentions. Click on the link to review the 2011 application and the presentation at the InnoVenture 2011 Conference.
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| 2012 Tour: | The Przirembel Prize will be featured in each city visit of InnnoVenture 2012. Click on the city to register to attend the free forum to learn about the Prize. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Application: | Applications and nominations for the Przirembel Prize are:
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| Steering Committee: |
The Przirembel Prize is an initiative of InnoVenture LLC. The Steering Committee provides guidance in the solicitation of applications and makes the final decision of the collaboration to be awarded the Prize.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Below are answers to frequently asked questions we received as we solicited applications.
Who will win the Przirembel Prize?
The Przirembel Prize recognizes collaborations of diverse organizations in the Southeastern United States. No one organization receives a Przirembel Prize, but it is always awarded to multiple organizations as a part of a collaboration. The winners will be able to demonstrate the value created by the collaboration that none could have accomplished by themselves.
Who will be interested in the Prize?
Participants in Przirembel Prize activities learn the best practices of peers who are maximizing the value of openly collaborating with others outside their organizations. Examples of who benefits include:
- entrepreneurs seeking corporations, universities or governments as customers,
- business developers and technology scouts in major corporations seeking to innovate with other corporations, governments, entrepreneurs or academic researchers,
- academic center directors seeking to work more collaboratively with industry and government partners,
- government economic developers seeking industry and academic partners to create economic prosperity for their communities, and
- service providers seeking to deliver more value to their clients.
When will the Prize be awarded?
The second annual award will be presented at the InnoVenture 2012 Conference on the evening of May 8, 2012.
What is an example of a collaboration?
CU-ICAR which Chris Przirembel championed is an example of a collaboration of diverse organizations—Clemson, BMW, Michelin, the State of SC, and others—which is having a significant economic impact as judged by those outside the region.
What will the award winner receive?
The winning collaboration will be awarded publicly and receive significant promotion at and after the two-day InnoVenture 2012 Conference. This exposure will build awareness and boost connections through the southeast and beyond that can help the winning collaboration be more successful. All business cases received will be published on the Przirembel Prize website.
Are there separate categories for the award?
The Steering Committee will consider multiple categories based on logical groupings of the applications received.
How will I know if my collaboration wins?
We will notify each entrant of receipt of the business case. The winners will not know until their name is called at the award ceremony.
What is “significant economic impact”?
This simply means that others from outside the region see the collaboration as significant. Some collaborations, such as the recruitment of Boeing to North Charleston, have immense impact. Others, such as a charter school with strong community support, have more local impact but are of sufficient quality that others outside the region seek to replicate them.
Does the size of the organizations involved matter?
No, but multiple organizations must be involved in the collaboration and it does have to have “significant economic impact.”
Will the collaboration need to be within a certain time period?
The collaboration needs to have existed long enough to have demonstrated “significant economic impact,” and it needs to have been recent enough to still be relevant to its community.
What needs to be shown regarding challenges overcome to achieve a common objective?
Success is viewed differently by diverse people, and challenges are intrinsic to diverse collaborations. Success is never a straight path. Show how you overcame the challenges of aligning the interests of diverse partners with different values, timelines, and incentives to achieve a common objective none of them could have achieved alone.
Are there specific formatting requirements for the Przirembel Prize business case?
The business case should be prepared with the suggested outline. You may submit the business case as a Word or pdf file. We do not require any standard margin formatting or specific font type or size. Header information on the cover page will be sufficient.
Who is Chris Przirembel?
As a leader in open innovation, Chris Przirembel fostered many collaborations across diverse organizations during his career including the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville, SC and the Clemson University Advanced Materials Center in Anderson, SC. Chris retired in 2010 from his position as vice president for research and economic development at Clemson University.