Best Open Innovation practice 2025

Celebrating the two WOIC Best Practice Award winners of 2025

This year’s World Open Innovation Conference delivered an exceptional set of contributions, but two of them truly captured the imagination of both jury and audience. One convinced the expert committee with its scientific strength and practical usefulness. The other won the hearts of the public with a powerful story of global collaboration and real world impact.

On December 15, we bring both winners together in one inspiring free webinar where they will share their journey, their results, and their insights for the open innovation community.

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WHat is it about?

This year we highlight two complementary approaches to open innovation. One shows how a global company activates an ecosystem to turn ideas into scalable solutions. The other demonstrates how hackathons can be transformed into powerful collaborative engines for rapid innovation, enriched with a practical tool for generating sustainable ideas.

BEST PRACTICE - JURY

Coopetition in Hackathons:
Redefining Innovation through Collaboration and Competition

Presented by Elīna Mikelsone (Design Factory)

The Coopetition model blends cooperation and competition in a way that transforms hackathons into inclusive, high performance innovation environments. Implemented in three national hackathons in Latvia, the model achieved a remarkable outcome: zero dropout and one hundred percent prototype completion. The model strongly reflects the values of open innovation and has already gained international recognition, including a nomination for the Falling Walls Science Summit.

To make her session even more practical, Elina will incorporate Greenopoly. This gamified idea generation tool translates sixty circular economy principles into an engaging collaborative game.

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BEST PRACTICE - Public

The HEINEKEN Brewhouse: Brewing Ideas into Scalable Innovation

Presented by Herman Rolfers (The HEINEKEN Company)

The HEINEKEN Brewhouse is a bold open innovation program that invites startups, scale ups, universities, partners, and internal teams to co create solutions for real business challenges. Each edition identifies critical issues, attracts hundreds of applicants, and selects finalists for live pitching and rapid innovation sprints.

Successful pilots are fast tracked into HEINEKEN’s global network, impacting almost ninety thousand employees in over seventy countries. With strong partners and a track record of global scale ups, the Brewhouse is a shining example of genuine ecosystem driven innovation.

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THE PRESENTERS

Elina Mikelsone

Head of Design Factory

RTU Science & Innovation Centre

Herman Rolfers

Director, Global Digital HR Transformation

The HEINEKEN Company

Piet Verhoeve

founder Origanius

host

FOR WHOM?

Specially designed for Innovators, R&D Professionals and Researchers

that want to go for innovation projects that deliver results

This webinar is for everyone who wants to boost their open innovation practice with real examples and concrete methods. Innovators, researchers, R&D teams, sustainability leaders, educators, and practitioners will all find valuable takeaways that they can apply in their own environment.

If you want inspiration, and proven approaches, this session is for you.