Open Innovation

We’re taking open innovation to a new level, by seeking ideas from local entrepreneurs, startups and university students to strengthen entrepreneurship and shape disruptive innovation, with the goal of bringing good ideas to market more quickly.

Partnership with Hatch

We formed a partnership with Hatch, home to Sri Lanka’s largest incubator/ accelerator space for startups, to reinforce our local connect and give back to society, staying true to our My Nestlé, My Sri Lanka initiative by doing good to our families, our communities and the planet.

In our efforts to support home grown innovation centered on healthy products and sustainable solutions, we called out for ideas and launched a Hackathon in 2020 together with Hatch. This hackathon invited bright minds in the country to pitch their original ideas to help create a healthier and greener Sri Lanka by offering solutions for products that are sustainable and/or use local ingredients to meet local nutritional needs. The shortlisted submissions would win cash prizes of Rs. 100,000 and the winner would receive a grand prize of Rs. 1 million.

Visit this link for more information.

Partnership with local universities

Accelerating our focus on homegrown innovation, we joined hands with four local universities – University of Kelaniya, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of Colombo and University of Moratuwa – to launch an innovation challenge for students. Close to 200 university students submitted their ideas for nutritious products that use local ingredients, and initiatives that can enhance our environmental sustainability.

Through this challenge, our focus was to not only refresh our innovation process and local insight but to also support and encourage innovative thinking among youth.