Fibria, São Paulo, Brazil, a global producer of eucalyptus pulp from planted forests, this week launched its open innovation platform. Called Fibria Insight, the initiative aims to encourage working in partnership with startups, companies, universities, and research centers in pursuit of new ideas, solutions, technologies, and/or new business development.

 

Fibria is one of the pioneers in the forest and pulp production sector to adopt the open innovation concept. The term was coined in the early 2000s in the U.S. and refers to companies that promote open ideas and research to find innovative solutions based on partnerships and jointly working with other organizations.

"The Fibria Insight platform reinforces our objective of investing in new ideas and businesses that are relevant to our core activity, which is the production of eucalyptus pulp from planted forests. We are open to both projects that bring other uses for our raw material and offer different solutions to our existing challenges," said Marcelo Castelli, president and CEO of Fibria.

Fibria Insight will run online. In the platform, Fibria will announce the "challenges"—topics and issues for which it wants to receive proposals of ideas and solutions. Those interested in participating can send their proposals through the website. Fibria will select the best projects, which will go through a process of preparing a business plan jointly with professionals from the company. In the last phase, viz. project demonstration (called "Demo Day"), those qualified will present their solutions to a panel of executives and specialists, who will choose the winner. The process is concluded when Fibria acquires the project or defines a partnership for joint investment, if the project still needs funds to become operational.

"We are optimistic about this initiative, which broadens the possibilities for innovation and stimulates joint solutions. We expect the participation of scientists, university students, business people, and experts from all over the world, crossing our current frontiers. The important thing is to find good ideas, whether in Brazil or anywhere in the world," said Fernando Bertolucci, technology and innovation officer at Fibria.

Two challenges will be launched during the platform debut. One is related to microfiber pulp, where the objective is to find ideas that help Fibria discover innovative applications for this product in different business areas. The second challenge is to find improvements in the process of packaging pulp bales, currently made with wires.

Fibria will receive proposals for the two challenges until the end of September 2017. Shortlisted candidates will be announced in October and will spend November preparing a business plan together with Fibria. The Demo Day, when the winners will be announced, will be held in December 2017.