Crowdsourcing is the key to the future

Who would have predicted when Jeff Howe coined the term “crowdsourcing” back in 2006 that six years later the disruptive influence of the term would have reached across so many different industries and continents that in 2013 there would be a week dedicated event related to the topic. Crowdsourcing Week Asia 2013 will be held in Singapore in April next year. The driving force of the event is the team of  Ludvik+Partners, a New York-based ad agency focus on a crowdsourcing model itself with Epirot Ludvik Nekaj, Rose Kemps and Peter Davison as the team members.

The term itself, crowdsourcing, means the coming together of a group of people, or a crowd, to help solve problems or issues faced by a company or an organization. It is a global, open invitation to innovate, to create and generate ideas as well as solutions to organizations or companies.

Epirot Ludvik Nekaj. Photo: Crunchbase

The mission of the event, as the agency describes, is to educate business owners and all C-Level executives on the power of Crowdsourcing. “Crowdsourcing is key to the future of our organizations as technology is giving more and more power and capacity for people to pro-actively develop new ideas and structures for businesses,” says Epirot Ludvik Nekaj, CEO and Founder of Ludvik+Partners. ”We are confident that Crowdsourcing is the only sustainable approach to innovation,” he adds.

A global advisory committee including several prominent member of the industry including Sean Moffitt, Carl Esposti, Ross Dawson, Andrew Tu, Philip Wu, and Shaun Abthe has been put in place to work with the event organizers. The advisers will consult on program structure, conference content and deliver keynote addresses.

Attendees and partners of this event will have the opportunities to engage, network and collaborate and become familiar about Asia Pacific examples and best practices. “The MICE industry is pretty vibrant in Singapore but an event that focuses on “crowdsourcing” is still certainly quite refreshing to Asia as a whole and to Singapore too,” explains Express in Music Business Development Director, Jerry Chen.

Sean Moffitt. Photo: Artez

Furthermore, each day will have a designated theme, a curator responsible for ensuring the quality of the content of the sessions. Sean Moffitt of Wikibrands and an Advisory Board member from Toronto, Canada stated “I love the fact that there is a strong focus on curation.” More than thirty sessions in total are planned to be kick-off in the areas of Science, Technology, Enterprise, Government/NGO, Citizen Journalism, Crowdfunding, Advertising, Marketing, Design, Fashion, Film, Photography, Tourism and Open Source. Pitches for sessions, speakers and other presentations are also being accepted through the website.

For start-ups in the region and a few international hopefuls, there will be a competition for new companies in the crowdsourcing industry. “What better way to show the industry that we are thinking about long term growth and innovation,” said Peter Davison, Ludvik+Partners Managing Director of Emerging Markets. By crowdsourcing the feedback, comments and votes, the company will pick start-ups to pitch for funding opportunities and look to sponsor prize money for the winning company.