More information about CoECI can be found at their website.
For decades, NASA has been an integral part in helping solve tough, mission-critical problems. These missions span technological catergories in space, aeronautics, and beyond, and have been a strong influence in the advancement of many life-improving technologies in the modern world. The Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) has been NASA's valuable organization serving the NASA workforce and different government agencies to generate ideas and solve important problems by working with global communities via challenges, crowdsourcing initiatives, and other innovative mechanisms. Now, after a very successful launch and more than 15 years running, they are looking to update and simplify to a new, memorable name. In addition to CoECI, the new program name will encompass NASA’s Centennial Challenges as well as NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program overall.
The goal of this campaign, using Tongal's own crowdsourcing platform, is to ideate new potential names and taglines for CoCEI that feel intriguing, active, clear, and concise. Specifically, NASA wants the new program name to be 1 to 2 words after "NASA" that include an actionable verb, such as "NASA Spark." The name itself should evoke a certain feeling of creation, innovation and ingenuity — something that pushes the boundaries of what people normally think of when it comes to NASA while, also catching one's attention with its simplicity. Importantly, they're NOT looking for a new acronym, or even something that could be an acronym. The program's strength is in connecting people (inside and outside of NASA) to help generate ideas and solve problems, so we want to aim for accessible as opposed to granular here.
The tagline itself is also a key part of this challenge, and it should be a brief phrase — not a full sentence — that helps to define the mission of the program. When formally presented, the program might appear with both the name and tagline, and the tagline will help to give more definition and scope to the name. While it might be harder to communicate the idea of connection or community in the name, the tagline may be a good place for language that speaks to those concepts and collaboration.
An ideal name should look to avoid space-centric themes. If your name and tagline do have a space or aeronautics angle to it, you'll want to be sure that they involve words with multiple possible meanings that can encompass more than just those categories. Though "innovation" and "center of excellence" are key ideological staples behind the programs at NASA, these are words we want to avoid. Instead, NASA's much more interested in actionable verbs that can give the program a more dynamic and flexible feel to it. Finally, the name “NASA Spark” and other existing program names at NASA should be avoided.
There is a careful balance that needs to be struck with the name: it must convey the responsibility and reliability of a NASA program that empowers the agency and the government at large, while evoking the exciting and creative possibilities that the program offers. Should it be helpful, you can browse through some of the challenges that CoCEI has run for NASA or for other government agencies.
For your submission, we'd like to know about the inspiration behind your idea too. What does your proposed program name make you think of when you hear it? Why do you think it could work for NASA? Where did your idea derive from? Any additional context that helps support the strength of your title, we want to hear it! For any questions or other project updates, check out the Project Forum.
EXPOSURE: We expect content will be used on the platforms below.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
TONE/FEEL: Intriguing, innovative, active, concise
AI USAGE: We are NOT looking for AI-generated submissions or content in this project.
By participating in this project, creators acknowledge that the Sponsor is under no obligation to greenlight a submission. Though most projects do move forward, we'll notify you in the event the Sponsor decides not to fund any submissions via the Project Forum. Regardless of the result, all submissions will be reviewed and evaluated by the Sponsor and project team.
In order to be considered for this project, you must include the below materials in your submission.