SeaFreight Labs, Newark, N.J., and InnoCentive, Waltham, Mass., announced a strategic partnership to deliver advanced crowd-solving services to the sea freight industry.

The new service combines the deep domain expertise of SeaFreight Labs with InnoCentive's ability to deliver diverse solutions from thousands of different individuals.  

InnoCentive accesses a diverse solver universe of over 400,000 skilled individuals from over 195 countries and territories around the world.  

"The sea freight industry is experiencing continuing pressure to improve services and reliability while lowering costs,” says Harry Sangree, founder of SeaFreight Labs. “It needs to concurrently respond to new challenges regarding its environmental impact and its long-awaited digital transformation. These challenges are massive and multi-faceted; they require a new innovation paradigm that can act at a pace never seen before."

"I started SeaFreight Labs because I felt the existing industry landscape could not move as aggressively on these issues as is required,” adds Sangree. “We literally need to leverage the expertise of the whole world to tackle today's sea freight challenges. I am excited that this partnership introduces a revolutionary new capability that is customized for the unique innovation needs of ocean carriers and freight forwarders."

"I stand with Steve Jobs' view of innovation—Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have,” adds Sangree. “When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led and how much you get it. If you're [going to] make connections [that] are innovative, you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.'"

"The point Steve is making is that innovative thinking requires doing things smarter than others,” adds Sangree. “It is vital to leverage every possible resource to get the broadest set of perspectives regarding whatever problem one is trying to solve. The InnoCentive partnership allows SeaFreight Labs to offer this capability to the sea freight industry in a cost-effective and time-efficient turnkey process with a high likelihood of success."

"We are eager to partner with SeaFreight Labs and Harry Sangree to bring our proven, cost-effective approach for innovation to the sea freight industry. InnoCentive will deliver breakthrough ideas and solutions by bringing our diverse solvers and experience in innovation to the leaders of this vital global industry, and we are looking to SeaFreight Labs to introduce us into situations where we can add value," says Jon Fredrickson, chief innovation officer at InnoCentive. 

SeaFreight Labs will be the exclusive marketing representative of InnoCentive to ocean carriers and global freight forwarders.