Paradigm issues InnoCentive challenge for fault representation

Open Innovation Marketplace to solve thorny problem in reservoir characterization.

In his keynote address to the SPE Digital Energy conference in Houston earlier this year, Paradigm CEO John Gibson vaunted the merits of the net for innovation—citing Ely Lilly’s innocentive.com website. InnoCentive lets technology providers post problems to the site and invite solutions from the community at large. Paradigm has now signed a contract with InnoCentive to use its Open Innovation Marketplace to attempt to solve a thorny problem in reservoir characterization—that of fracture network description.

Paradigm is seeking a way to combine fault interpretation picks into ‘high performance’ representations of 3D fracture networks. The network should support geometric query and understand topologies such as fault displacement and connectivity.

Paradigm CTO Duane Dopkin said, ‘15 years ago, we instituted a program which allowed oil industry geophysicists to contribute algorithms—effectively ‘etching’ their signature on a global and commercially available system. By working with InnoCentive today, Paradigm is again challenging the broader E&P community to recognize open innovation as a way of accelerating technology development.’ A $10,000 prize waits for someone who can fix Paradigm’s fractured networks!

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