Idea Wicket is a GREAT idea. It is a website for user generated ideation, innovation and inventions. If you have an idea or a conceptual prototype, that you want to share with the world, get feedback about and maybe license or sell it to corporations, this is where you should head. The name IdeaWicket is derived from the words “idea” and “wicket” (a gate or a door); thus the reference is to a gateway for ideas. The website has been launched by a 5 member Delhi based startup.

When you land on the site, you’ll probably take a while to understand what exactly it is and how is it supposed to work. The homepage shows the latest ideas or concepts, that users have submitted. Click on one of these and you will land on a page with the details of the idea – images, tags, views, comments, a url, digg/delicious/ buttons, share, flag et al. Very much Web2.0ish. Then there is the detailed description about the idea, the market, time and cost analysis, the IP details and the intended user benefits. All of this info is packed into a very well designed UI. Check the screenshot below for an idea submitted by a user for streamlining or rationalizing the familiar broadband bill (from Airtel, in this case), something that is usually so confusing and undecipherable that it clearly needs reworking.

The team behind IdeaWicket wants to make this a place, where innovators and corporations can connect to exchange their innovation requirements. Corporations will be able to access the innovations that are relevant to their area of working, post specific innovation requirements that they are seeking solutions for, and contact innovators on the site. From a corporation’s perspective this could work as a very useful augmentation to their own R&D efforts, while sourcing product improvement ideas from their customers and the general public. Its not difficult to imagine a situation where users start posting solutions for everyday products, processes and services that save time, cost and space, increase productivity and efficiency. Why, this has the potential to snowball into a “Wisdom of Crowds” approach to product innovation.

The team may have to deal with tricky issues related to IPR, confidentiality or plagiarism. This is what the FAQ section of the website says in regard to IPR issues.

Ques: Is my intellectual property safe on IdeaWicket?

Ans: It is advisable to take independent legal counsel before publishing a sophisticated innovation online. If you are planning to patent your innovation please note that publishing an unpatented innovation on the web may take away your ability to patent it later. For more information please visit the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trademarks for India, United States Patent and Trademark Office, The UK Patent Office or the relevant intellectual property authority for your region. If you are unsure about how much information to disclose it may be best to describe just the merits of your innovation and the needs it fulfills without giving away its inner workings.

Then there is the question of financial viability. They would require a pricing mechanism, that is fair and transparent. I have not been provided any more details about the same. Forgive my speculative instincts, but I think it is likely to be based on a fee to be paid by the company “buying” the idea.

One of the beauties of the Web 2.0 is its accent on harnessing collective wisdom via different genres of user generated content. IdeaWicket (at a conceptual level) extends UGC to the realms of innovations and inventions. And going by the Airtel bill rationalization example, there is no reason why this model cannot appeal to corporations. Every big (why only big, even small ones as well) company never misses an opportunity to brag about their “user centric approach”, or their efforts to “channelize customer feedback into product design” or how they always “listen to their customers”. IdeaWicket provides a simple and elegant platform to drive that noble intent from ‘advertising-speak’ to reality.

DreamZHunt is a new concept in funding technology startups that has been initiated by a Chennai based business group called SGS. You can think of it as an ‘idea-hunt’ contest, (focused on the IT industry) for those who are looking for their first-business breakthrough. At the end of the content, SGS will pick up three good ideas (along with their teams) and invest around $20k to $100k per business in exchange for (minimum) 15% stock, besides helping them out with mentoring and other legal stuff. This contest is meant for those people, who are looking for financial help and mentorship in kickstarting their tech business.

One can think of DreamZHunt as a company sponsored funding exercise (as opposed to VC funding). This is NOT an event for somebody who already runs a business, or is looking for VC-backed funding. Instead, it is meant for those who have the idea & the “dream”, but just don’t have money or expertise and are looking for that breakthrough. SGS is open to having different levels of involvement with the startups – either an incubation center, a company sponsored funding or something as regular as VC funding. More details here.

Why is SGS doing this? Firstly, its an investment decision for them. Secondly, they want to do their bit in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the Indian IT industry. For the contest, you can send entries until March 31, when the ideas will be screened and evaluated by a panel of judges. Ten finalists would be invited to Chennai (all-paid expenses) in the last week of April for a one-day interaction session, where each team will have to present their case before the panel. And three of the entries will be finally selected.

Frankly, this is the first time I am being exposed to such a concept. I am also not sure if this model is unique, or there are precedents to this. I don’t know the people at SGS personally, other than the fact that they wrote to me asking for my feedback about the event. But I see no downsides to people exploring this option. Getting venture funding is not easy, so if you can secure finances for your business idea in a way that has lower entry barriers than VC funding, maybe its worth a try. Off course there are lots of tricky issues that will be involved in this model as well. I’ll be interested to see what kind of response (and outcome) this event gets.