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Winners: Nokia's Silicon Valley Open Innovation Challenge

Nokia Networks recently announced the winners of its Silicon Valley Open Innovation Challenge, a contest designed to connect the infrastructure giant with new ideas and talent. David Letterman (yes), the company’s head of ecosystem development, is based in Silicon Valley and the contest was also based there this year. But many participants, including the winners, came from outside the Valley.
“We weren’t going to constrain that the solutions had to come from any geography or from any type of company, any size of company,” said Letterman. “We didn’t really know what to expect. Nokia is going through a lot of change. We’re not strangers to being on both sides of the disruption equation.”
The contest had two focus areas this year: virtualization of the telco network and using predictive big data analytics to make sense of network data. The Open Innovation Challenge received 90 applications, half from Silicon Valley and half from other parts of the world. Only half the applicants were startups.
The two grand prize winners won a trip to Nokia’s headquarters to meet with company leadership. Each of the seven finalists was assigned a Nokia “innovation champion” to help them navigate the company and leverage its resources.
The winners were Midokura and ParStream. Midokura’s MidoNet provides a software-based virtual networking layer within an existing physical network infrastructure. ParStream says its algorithms parse huge volumes of data faster than the speed of light. The winners joined RCR Wireless News and Nokia’s David Letterman to discuss the Open Innovation Challenge and their winning solutions:

ABOUT AUTHOR

Martha DeGrasse
Martha DeGrassehttp://www.nbreports.com
Martha DeGrasse is the publisher of Network Builder Reports (nbreports.com). At RCR, Martha authored more than 20 in-depth feature reports and more than 2,400 news articles. She also created the Mobile Minute and the 5 Things to Know Today series. Prior to joining RCR Wireless News, Martha produced business and technology news for CNN and Dow Jones in New York and managed the online editorial group at Hoover’s Online before taking a number of years off to be at home when her children were young. Martha is the board president of Austin's Trinity Center and is a member of the Women's Wireless Leadership Forum.