Q+A

Questions about Innov8 can be emailed to innov8@pearson.com from 1st September 2011 to 1st October 2011. Please register on this website and follow @pearsoninnov8 on Twitter for updates.

Q. I am a teacher and want my students to enter. Should the school enter their ideas for them or should they register themselves?

A. Please make it clear on your entry that idea is from a young person or team of young people working together. However, we recommend that a teacher emails in the entries on behalf of students so that we can contact the teacher if the idea is short listed.

Q. Is it OK for groups of students to work in teams to enter?

A. Yes. We recommend that you ask the students to give themselves a team name and that the idea is entered under that name.

Q. Do you have to have young people or learners in your team to enter or will Pearson provide a young person to work with if we are selected to go through to the pitching phase?

A. Neither, any individual, business or organization with an interest in learning can enter and all ideas will be considered on their merits regardless if you are working with young people or not

Q. Can ex-employees of Pearson enter?

A. Yes, although you should declare this in your biog

Q. Does the lock down clause mean that we can not talk to anyone else about the idea between entering and the competition winner being announced?

A. The reason for the lock down is to ensure that Pearson and any short listed person, business of organization have the time to explore the idea fully, not to stop entrants from going after other opportunities of seeking funding elsewhere. The lock down only applies to the 5 individuals, businesses or organizations that are short listed to go through the pitching phase. If you enter the competition and you do not get short listed then the lock down does not apply to you. If your idea is short listed but due to the fact that you are seeking funding elsewhere you need to be free to talk to others then we will discuss this on a case by case basis.

Q. Can people from outside the UK enter?

A. No, the competition is only open to UK based businesses*

*When Innov8 first opened we told a number of companies from outside the UK that they could enter. Therefore anyone who registered on the website before 16th September 2011 will be allowed to enter.

Q. I have this great idea for Pearson but am not sure that I am going to enter – can’t I just talk to you about it?

A. The whole point behind the pitching phase of Innov8 is to find five great ideas and to pay the idea originator £1,000 to help have a conversations with Pearson. So the best way to have the conversation is to enter innov8. We have made the barrier to entry deliberately low becasue we want to have the conversations too. We just want to be fair about allowing a range of those with a passion for learning to get the chance to form a relationship with Pearson and recognize that great ideas can come from unusual places – that is why we choose an Open Innovation format.

Q. We already have a product out there but can see how it could be extended into new areas of learning?

A. The innov8 team includes specialists working in primary, secondary, FE, HE, vocational and profressional learning and EFL. This means we can work with you to take an existing product or service in an entirely new direction. We are interested in helping with testing ideas in new learning contexts and trying a technology designed for a particular purpose in a completely different area of application.

Q. The prize money is OK but not enough to get me really excited?

A. It is important to remember that this is about innovation, fresh ideas and trying new things. The prize money is to allow an idea to be explored through a collaboration with Pearson’s innovation team. It is not a commission or expected to deliver a live product, it is to allow some prototyping and testing to happen to help an idea get to the next level.

Q. Can we enter an idea for a Google Maps mashup game?

A. Yes please!

Q. Will Pearson decide how the prize money is spent?

A. The pitching award of £1,000 is to help with the time and cost of becoming an innov8 finalist. The way the £5,000 is spent will be agreed with Pearson but is essentially up to you. The money is to help take the winning idea forward and therefore the way this is spent will depend on what needs to happen next. If you are a developer or designer and you want to spend the money on your time then that is fine. If you are a school then the money could be spent on having a developer work with you to create a prototype of a design idea. If you have an existing product or service and want to test this in new ways and want to spend the money to allow you to do this then that is fine also.