NASA Declares NOIS2 to Expand on Crowdsourcing Toolkit

Innovation and Developments are the Traditional Tenets of NASA

NASA creates benchmarks with its innovations in space technology. It already holds a long history of doing so. The agency is tirelessly seeking innovations and improvements to find solutions to the problems and gaps that persist. This objective is aimed to be achieved with a series of 19 new NOIS2 (NASA Open Innovation Services 2) contracts. These renewed contracts will assist NASA and the other government agencies to conduct and host crowdsourcing, which can be effective in reaching millions of innovators.

The Inception of the NOIS Contract, its Purpose, and Success 

Reportedly, the NOIS contract had originated in 2015. The contract armed NASA and other federal government agencies with a toolkit that facilitated crowdsourcing and innovation. The primary aim of the contract was to lure space enthusiasts to participate in brainstorming sessions to create novel solutions and ideas that can drive innovation and progress. The NOIS in 2015 successfully drew ten contractors who provided crowd-based solutions by commercial approaches.

What is new about NOIS2? 

The NOIS2 is the sequel of NOIS. This renewed contract aims to expand on the crowdsourcing toolkit from the previous version of NOIS. The new NOIS2 involves new challenges, prize competitions, opportunities to freelance, microtask projects, and other crowd-based methodologies. The total value of all the contracts stands at $24,900,000 in five years.

NOIS2 is an Opportunity Maker

Only creativity and novel ideas are the torch-bearers that keep NASA thriving towards excellence. Besides, such endeavors draw innovative ideas from young minds and space enthusiasts, offering them opportunities to be under the spotlight.

The opportunity to freelance opens a gateway for amateur space enthusiasts to involve themselves in value-added activities like brainstorming solutions to the existing or prospective problems, teach and learn new concepts and technologies that adds an edge to their CV and job opportunities.

In a competition arranged by the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL), Freelancer.com has recently won the joint NOIS2 tender. This will help NASA to crowdsource talents from across the globe. The talents chosen will devote themselves to designing innovative tools and technology. This is an imperative step taken towards the democratization of space and technology that can also act as a job creator.

NTL promises that it will continue to encourage and stimulate the agency's use of crowdsourcing and innovation through NOIS2. This effort will help to accelerate research and development tasks in NASA, improve algorithm performances that will help in the successful execution of NASA missions. NTL also provides guidelines on open initiatives that help the federal government agencies to channelize their efforts and investments in the right direction.