Sensis Awarded NASA Open Innovation Contract

It is the only marketing agency that’s part of the $25 million innovation services contract

WASHINGTON — NASA has added Sensis to its list of companies eligible to provide open innovation services as part of a $25 million contract. Projects include creating the tools, designs, and solutions need to establish a manned lunar colony.

The innovative crosscultural agency has a long and successful history of working with the U.S. government. “We have extensive experience helping organizations launch open innovation challenges that have resulted in extraordinary innovations,” said Sensis founder José Villa. “Our team did a great job of demonstrating our success at tapping into diverse innovator communities that can collaborate and yield meaningful results.”

SensisChallenges — the agency’s crowdsourcing practice — has launched 20 federal prize challenges, and distributed millions of dollars of funding to validated start-ups and solutions on behalf of the U.S. government and foundations.

“NASA is leading the charge in open innovation, both for themselves and others,” said Sensis Open Innovation Lead Oliver Gerland. “The space agency is enabling other federal agencies to experiment with open innovation and crowdsourcing programs using this contract. Ultimately, this is a good use of government resources and will actually create efficiencies across the government.”

Using an interagency agreement, other federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Transportation Security Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can tap into Sensis’ open innovation expertise.

A few challenges Sensis has managed in the past include: HRSA’s Bridging the Word Gap Challenge focused on digital language tools for low-income children, AHRQ’s Step Up App Challenge focused on intuitive health care mobile apps, and NIST’s CHARIoT Challenge focused on designing next-generation augmented reality and IoT solutions for first responders.

About Sensis

Sensis is an integrated cross-cultural marketing agency. We connect brands with people, through meaningful marketing that builds sustainable demand. Our cross-cultural model combines Hispanic, African American, Asian market expertise to inform all our work. We are a strategy-led agency built around robust research and insights. Our integrated capabilities – both culturally and tactically – are a solution to a fragmented media landscape and reflection of the cultural fusion of the U.S. Sensis works across several industries with a focus on health care, financial services, CPG, education, and energy. Based in Los Angeles, Sensis has offices in Washington D.C., Atlanta, and Austin, Texas. Agency clients include AT&T, the U.S. Army, Sempra Energy, AltaMed, Texas Tech University, the CDC, and Calbright College.

About SensisChallenges

SensisChallenges is a practice within Sensis dedicated to open innovation solutions.  SensisChallenges helps organizations crowdsource groundbreaking solutions. Specializing in ideation, software development, data science, and scientific discovery challenges, we help federal agencies, foundations, and commercial enterprises develop and implement meaningful innovation.