Fri, Oct 23, 2009
Space Agency Joins Forces With TopCoder, Harvard And London
Business Schools
NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston kicked off an
experimental programming competition today in conjunction with
TopCoder, Inc. and researchers from Harvard Business School and
London Business School. The competition, conducted for the center's
Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD), is aimed at developing
algorithms that optimize medical kits for long-duration human space
exploration.
"The Space Life Sciences strategy involves developing
collaborative business models to drive innovation," said Dr.
Jeffrey Davis, SLSD director. "This experimental competition is one
example of our ongoing commitment to finding new approaches to
problem solving and successfully managing our portfolio."
The goal of NASA's space life sciences work is to optimize human
health and productivity for space exploration before, during and
after the actual spaceflight experience. In this experiment,
competitors will develop algorithms that will help NASA's flight
surgeons make decisions involved with optimizing the contents of
the medical supplies kit that may one day be carried on board
long-term space missions. Submissions will be compared with the
results of an existing computer model that has simulated the
expected medical occurrences and outcomes for various mission
scenarios.
The online competition runs Nov. 4 to 14 and is open to all
TopCoder members but will be limited to 480 members. More than
$24,000.
The competition originated when professor Karim R. Lakhani of
Harvard Business School and professor Kevin Boudreau of London
Business School invited NASA to provide a compelling technical
challenge to monitor and analyze the results from an open
innovation management perspective. Their research project is funded
by grants from the London Business School M-Lab and the Harvard
Business School.
TopCoder is a competitive software development community with
more than 220,000 developers representing more than 200 countries
that offers competition-based development using a unique model of
open innovation.
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