Join us for an eight-week, cohort-based learning journey tailored for innovation leaders, senior management leaders, executive leaders, and management consultants. This program is designed to transform you into a master of crafting and executing innovation challenges that not only activate but sustain innovation at your workplace.
Step out of the course with a fully designed innovation challenge tailored to address a real-world need within your organization. You'll not only learn the theory but will apply what you've learned in a practical setting, ensuring you can make an immediate impact.
Gain a foundational framework that can be adapted to design and implement innovation challenges of any scale. This toolkit will empower you to systematically drive change and foster innovation across various contexts and challenges.
Join the community of driven and like-minded innovation catalysts. This growing community will become a valuable resource for collaboration, exchange of ideas, and mutual support as you continue to advance in your practice of innovation challenges.
This learning experience transformed how I think about leading innovation. I now have a clear, powerful framework to design, launch, and drive innovation challenges — not just instinctively, but intentionally, and activate innovators within and beyond my ecosystem. If you want to master the craft of innovation leadership, this program is a must.
Pranvera B. International Finance Specialist
This self-paced 8-Module learning experience opened my eyes to sourcing innovation beyond traditional R&D. The flexible format combined with live coaching made this experience both practical and transformative. I now have the framework and confidence to activate innovators within and beyond my organization and waste management as an industry, which demands constant reinvention.
Kreshnik K. Business Development
Understanding innovation challenges allowed me to open up ideation and co-creation within my team — strengthening collaboration and accelerating outcomes. Together, we improved workflows, streamlined multiple processes into one, and delivered improvements that benefited everyone on the team. 'Activate Innovation' made innovation a collective effort, not just an individual one.
Mal T., Talent and Innovation Manager
Iliriana's course shifted how I think as a PM. It showed me how powerful open innovation and collaborative challenges can be — not just for gathering ideas, but for building with real relevance. A must for anyone who wants to improve continuously and build products people actually need.
Rita V., Product Manager
Innovation leaders are the catalysts for change in any organization. This course provides you with practical tools and frameworks to build a thriving innovation culture. Learn to engage both internal and external talent, diversify your innovation portfolio, and design challenges that drive impactful products, processes, or services. Whether you’re tackling internal inefficiencies or engaging external collaborators, you’ll walk away equipped to make innovation a cornerstone of your strategy.
Are you a middle management or senior leader striving to balance operational goals with driving innovative solutions? This course equips you with actionable strategies to transform your team’s ideas into measurable outcomes. Learn to foster a culture of innovation, streamline the growth of ideas into impactful projects, and demonstrate your leadership by delivering results that go beyond traditional KPIs.
As an executive leader, are you ready to unleash your organization’s innovative potential but unsure where to begin? This course gives you the confidence and frameworks to empower your team to create breakthrough solutions. Learn how to build a supportive environment that nurtures innovation, from idea generation to full-scale implementation, and drive your organization’s growth with a clear, structured innovation strategy.
Are you a management consultant seeking to deliver exceptional value to your clients? This course provides a comprehensive toolkit to identify opportunities for innovation, implement tailored challenges, and deliver results that exceed expectations. Gain the skills to help your clients harness untapped potential, drive innovation from within, and position yourself as a trusted partner in their transformation journey.
The Design Challenges & Activate Innovators Like a Pro learning experience is delivered through interactive online classes, enabling flexible participation from anywhere. The program is composed of 8 individual modules that provide a comprehensive end-to-end coverage of innovation challenge design and execution. Participants should expect to dedicate approximately 3.5 hours per week to coursework and interactive sessions.
Virtual Classroom
Explore the fundamentals and significance of innovation challenges in driving organizational change.
Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom
Explore the fundamentals and significance of innovation challenges in driving organizational change.
Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom
Learn effective management strategies to oversee innovation challenges from conception to completion.
Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom
Identify and analyze opportunities within your organization that can be transformed into innovation challenges.
Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom
Develop the skills to craft detailed, actionable innovation challenges tailored to specific organizational needs.
Virtual Classroom
Eight weeks, with one live cohort class per week.
Learn from first hand experience of established leaders in innovation challenge.
Benefit from learning by doing method, and develop your first innovation challenge, to launch at your or client's workplace.
Refine the innovation challenge design with weekly from 1:1 consulting with the instructor.
Hello innovator,
This learning experience is a result of a career of over two decades helping organizations across walks of life become more innovative so they serve their customers better. In hundreds of projects and millions of dollars invested, I saw again and again that innovation leads directly to measurable ROI—whether it’s:
Yet, the unshakable truth prevails across each of the experiences.
It’s not organizations that innovate—it's their people.
Over the past months, I’ve distilled these experiences into a unique learning journey. It’s designed to empower anyone, anywhere—regardless of their title, department, or sector—to initiate innovation projects and mobilize innovators around them. In other words, to walk beyond boundaries.
If you’re curious about how to ignite continuous innovation in your surroundings, you’ve come to the right place. Our first-of-its-kind learning experience equips you to:
I’m not offering quick fixes or lofty theories—I’m sharing proven strategies honed over 20 years of designing and scaling programs for ongoing innovation with real-world impact.
I’d love to guide you through frameworks you can adapt to fit your organization, your people, and your unique mission.
Step out of the learning experience with a fully designed innovation challenge tailored to address a real need within your organization. You'll not only learn the theory but will apply what you've learned in a practical setting, ensuring you can make an immediate impact.
Gain a foundational framework that can be adapted to design and implement innovation challenges of any scale. This toolkit will empower you to systematically drive change and foster innovation across various contexts and challenges.
Join the community of driven and like-minded innovation catalysts. This growing community will become a valuable resource for collaboration, exchange of ideas, and mutual support as you continue to advance in your practice of innovation challenges.
Ideal for professionals who want to master the foundations and collaborate with peers.
What’s Included:
Designed for those who want hands-on support and personalized feedback. With a total value of over $5,000 in live training, 1:1 consulting, and resources, this course is available for a promotional price of $2,999 one-time payment.
Everything in Core Training, plus:
Please reach us at activate.innovation@opensolvestudio.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
An innovation challenge is a structured and time-bound invitation to solve a well-defined problem. It incentivizes people, inside and/or outside your organization, to contribute new ideas, prototypes, or ready-to-use solutions. It’s not just about collecting ideas; it’s about turning them into real outcomes that matter.
Because innovation can’t wait. Whether your organization is aiming to grow, solve persistent challenges, or stay competitive, knowing how to activate ideas and innovators through a challenge is a must-have skill for today’s leaders. There is rising demand across industries for professionals with innovation management capabilities. It's quickly becoming a core leadership skill and one that complements your subject matter expertise, rather than replaces it. While innovation can be pursued through many methods, innovation challenges offer a practical, action-driven approach. They allow you to learn by doing and cultivate innovation in a way that’s uniquely aligned with your organization’s needs and ambitions. There’s no better time to start.
AI is powerful, but people innovate. Innovation challenges are how you activate human creativity and use tools like AI to solve meaningful problems. You don’t have to choose between the two—they work better together. By learning how to run innovation challenges, you’ll be able to harness both to accelerate change in your organization.
It focuses creative energy around a shared goal. A challenge creates urgency and a safe space to think differently. It shifts people from passive observers to active solvers, sparks collaboration, and provides a platform for ideas to be tested and evolved into real solutions. It also builds innovation confidence across your organization.
Anywhere new thinking and doing is needed. Innovation challenges are used in companies, nonprofits, universities, and governments. They're great for developing products, improving services, addressing social issues, shaping policy—you name it. Internally with employees, externally with startups, or to engage customers—they’re flexible and powerful.
Not necessarily. Many innovation challenges start small and grow over time. You can begin with modest resources, such as partnerships, in-kind contributions, or even external grants and sponsorships to support your initiative. In fact, it is highly recommended to start small using tools you already have within your organization. As you build confidence and experience, you can take on more complex problems that require greater resources and eventually benefit from investing in idea or innovation management technology to support end-to-end execution. What matters most is having a clearly defined problem, strong leadership and stakeholder support, relevance to your business or mission, and a thoughtfully designed experience for the solvers you aim to engage.
Not at all. Innovation challenges are a flexible and cost-effective tool for businesses of any size. In fact, smaller companies often benefit even more because they can move faster, involve their teams directly, and solve pressing problems without needing large R&D budgets. You do not need a big team or a large budget to get started. All you need is a clear problem and a willingness to engage others in finding solutions. This course shows you exactly how.
You’ll be able to confidently design and run an innovation challenge, starting from defining the problem all to supporting idea implementation. You’ll walk away with a practical framework you can apply immediately.
This experience is for managers, team leads, innovation champions, and anyone ready to lead change, regardless of title. It’s especially valuable for middle managers or new innovation leads who’ve been tasked with activating innovation but aren’t sure how to start. No prior innovation experience required—just curiosity and drive.
From operational inefficiencies to breakthrough product ideas, from culture shifts to sustainability goals—challenges can tackle nearly any type of organizational or societal issue that requires fresh thinking.
No. All you need is curiosity, open mind, a problem worth solving, and a willingness to engage others. Innovation is a team sport and this course will guide you through it.
It’s an 8-week experience with weekly 90-minute live sessions. Optional 45-minute coaching sessions are available for those who sign up for personalized support.
Yes. The modules are interactive and designed for peer learning and feedback. You’ll engage with case studies, group sessions, and guest lectures from experienced challenge practitioners. If you opt into coaching, you’ll receive weekly 1:1 feedback to develop your challenge as you go and launch it upon completion. After the course, you’ll join a supportive alumni network.
Absolutely. The course is designed to be practical. You’ll leave with a ready-to-use plan, and if you choose to design your challenge during the course, you can launch it as soon as you’re done.
That’s perfectly fine. We’ll guide you step-by-step to uncover a meaningful challenge idea aligned with your organization’s needs.
Yes. You can join to build your capacity, learn from peers, and be part of the alumni network. The knowledge and tools you gain will be ready for when the opportunity arises.