Not all innovation takes place inside a company. Actually, it’s very likely that really great ideas will be found outside the organization. In this TEDx talk, Lucia Chierchia, Head of Open Innovation at Electrolux, talks about how using an open innovation approach helps to capture the best ideas from innovators around the world.

“There is big value when it comes to innovations from outside our company,” Chierchia says. “And we needed to find a way to capture this value and build something new together with smart, external people.”

This was the starting point for Chierchia when she moved from her position as R&D manager to become head of an internal “startup” called Electrolux Open Innovation.

In the TEDx talk, she describes the different ways the open innovation team capture the best ideas and the practical outcomes and solutions as a result.

Chierchia adds: “The role of the open innovation team is to function as a bridge between external networks of innovators and Electrolux. Some people asked us if we really wanted to work with a crazy crowd of inventors, even without public patents. I said ’yes’, and we started to collect a huge number of ideas – good ideas – solutions able to create new value for our consumers.”

“And yes, we are concious of that we stand at the fore of a cultural change, but we are on our way to break down some barriers and make more people realize that innovation diversity is a value, for us as a company and for our consumers.”