InnoGPS: Innovation Global Positioning System
Traditionally the ideation and exploration of innovation opportunities and directions rely on human expertise or intuition and is faced with high uncertainty. Many historically-successful firms (e.g., Kodak, Motorola) lost direction for innovation and declined. To de-risk innovation ideation, we have developed a cloud-based data-driven computer-aided ideation system, InnoGPS, at Data-Driven Innovation Lab at the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre. InnoGPS integrates an empirical network map of all technology domains in the patent database, with map-based functions to position innovators, explore neighbourhoods and directions to far fields in the technology space. Our inspiration is by analogy from Google Maps for positioning, nearby search and direction finding in the physical space. The descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics in InnoGPS fuse innovation, information and network sciences and interactive visualization. InnoGPS is the first of its kind and may disrupt the intuitive tradition of innovators (e.g., individuals, companies) for innovation ideation by providing rapid, data-driven, scientifically-grounded and visually-engaging computer aids.