The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), one of the earliest adopters of open innovation in the federal government, has doubled down on its mission to leverage the crowd for solving some of its greatest challenges by issuing the NASA Open Innovation Services 2 (NOIS2) contract. This vehicle builds on the success of the first NOIS contract, which launched challenges to crowdsource solutions spanning Data Science, 3D Computer-aided Design (CAD) Modeling, Design Thinking, and most notably the Space Poop Challenge. NOIS2, much like NOIS, is utilizing open innovation to procure similar solutions and products but also expanding the scope of crowdsourcing services it can tap into, including internal ideation, microtasking, crowd building, and public engagement. In issuing the NOIS2 Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, the NASA Center of Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), through its NASA Tournament Lab program, has also expanded the list of vendors who can provide open innovation services and in doing so, selected Ensemble along with its IdeaScale and Sourceability partners. The entire list of vendors who also received awards includes:
Ensemble Government Services, LLC
Freelancer International PTY LTD
“Ensemble is thrilled to receive an award for the NOIS2,” commented Ensemble President and Founder, Michael Contreras. He added, “We hope to leverage this contract to continue providing high-value open innovation services to the federal government while also introducing NASA and other agencies to our IdeaScale and Sourceability partners and their respective internal ideation and crowdsourced manufacturing and microelectronics parts platforms.”
This contract has a lifespan of five years and funding ceiling of $25 million. It also allows for interagency agreements for other federal agencies to procure open innovation services. NOIS2 is the second NASA contract awarded to Ensemble with CoECI, following its receipt of the NASA Internal Internal Innovation and Collaboration Environment (NIICE) contract in 2018 which powers the NASA@Work internal ideation and collaboration platform also provided by IdeaScale. Ensemble is the only vendor on both NOIS2 and NIICE contract vehicles.
