Konica Minolta & NineSigma Launch Contest for Service Innovation on Handwriting Input Device

TOKYO

NineSigma Japan (www.ninesigma.co.jp/), representing Konica Minolta, Inc. (www.konicaminolta.com/), seeks an idea that will enable “service innovation” built on their newly developed input device for digitizing and recognizing, in real time, handwritten characters and drawings on any paper with any type of pen.

Lots of handwriting input devices already exist in the world. However, many of them are restricted in how freely you can use them; for example, some require the use of a specific pen and paper. Konica Minolta’s technology, on the other hand, can be used with any type of pen and paper, just as you would fill out regular paper. People who are used to handwriting can use it seamlessly in the same way as writing on normal paper. Konica Minolta, Inc. believes that this technology can be utilized in the medical and education fields, but they need to research further to know whether there is actually a strong need in these areas, or whether there are in fact more appealing needs in other areas. The client therefore widely issues this contest-style request, in order to solicit service business built with Konica Minolta’s technology.

Anticipated proposals

• Applications or ideas for service businesses, assuming the use of Konica Minolta’s handwriting input device, and/or enabled by the analytics of the big data accumulated through the device.
• Technologies that complement or enhance the handwriting input device to enable services & applications (such as big data analytics, advanced handwriting recognition).

Konica Minolta will be awarding a total of US $10,000 in cash prizes for promising proposers (a maximum of five individuals or organizations). The winners will be announced on the official website.

More information is available in the Request (REQ) online at www.ninesigma.co.jp/contest/Konicaminolta_en/.

The submission deadline for non-confidential proposals is October 31, 2014.

To view the other opportunities from NineSigma, e.g., RFPs, Innovation Contests, Grand Challenges, Gallery, join NineSights – the NineSigma Open Innovation Community at https://ninesights.ninesigma.com.

About NineSigma Japan

NineSigma Japan is a subsidiary of NineSigma (www.ninesigma.com), who connects organizations with external innovation resources to accelerate innovation in private, public and social sectors. NineSigma has the largest open global network of solution providers and an extensive database of existing solutions spanning numerous industries and technical disciplines.