Crowdsourcing is a new buzz-word which is often used to describe collaborative work on a difficult problem. Some friends at Utest are using this idea to create a collaborative model of software QA testing. This is a very clever application of crowdsourcing because QA benefits from the larger number of testers. That being said, QA testing is just one application of many possible.

Firms that specialize in crowdsourcing problems have traditionally been more focused on IP transfer than technology. For example Innocentive and NineSigma, both leaders in this field have not invested in technology development as UTest and others. The question here, is whether we can create more efficient ways of evaluating ideas, while at the same time, creating value and efficiency in generating new knowledge.

We are especially interested in evaluating the scientific ideas and creating the ability to crowdsource difficult scientific problems using technology.

The Utest whitepaper can be found here