Developing our people’s creativity and bringing their ideas to life

We understand how essential innovation and creativity are today. Exploring ideas so some can become a reality is what innovation is all about. And creating new technologies that can build stronger societies – and contribute to the future success of the PwC network – is what PwC strives to do. That’s why we created the Global Innovation Challenge; an innovation competition that taps into our people’s creativity all around the world.

Now in its fifth year, the challenge draws a wide range of participants all with the same goal: to solve a client problem with a cutting-edge solution. The shortlisted participants/teams pitch their idea live at PwC's annual Global Innovation Conference, and the winning solution is chosen by a vote.

This year’s challenge broke all previous records. We received 125 entries from over 500 participants across 37 countries and all areas of PwC's business. Together, the solutions put forward generated a truly impressive US$422 million in revenue. Spanning cyber-security to behavioural design, 360-degree virtual reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence, to cognitive automation and geospatial technology. The range and quality of the submissions was unprecedented.

We selected five finalists – from Canada, India, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the UK – to pitch their solutions live at PwC's Global Innovation Conference in Toronto. And, breaking yet another record, we had two winners this year. The quality of the pitches from India (a digital asset management service) and Luxembourg (a digital intelligence platform) were so high, the vote was tied for the first time ever. A great example of the depth and breadth of creativity across PwC's network and also the agility of the challenge itself.