Our Innovation challenges are the best fit when multiple approaches to solving a given problem need to be tried. This may include testing various AI models, trying different approaches to collect data and overcome data challenges, or refining a given AI model by tuning various parameters. If we think an Omdena Innovation Challenge is not the best fit, we suggest a smaller team to work with through the Omdena Top Talent program.

Yes, via Omdena Top Talent you can work with the top 2% of our talent. The top talents are selected from a pool of over 30,000 AI Engineers who have participated in at least one Omdena project by carefully assessing the top performers in both soft and hard skills.

Yes, it happens very often that organizations decide to send a job offer to multiple engineers from the team at the end of the AI Innovation Challenge. The opportunity of working with a large team of engineers on a complex problem for 8 weeks is an excellent method to identify talented people to hire. Omdena charges a small hiring fee for successful candidates.

Our mission as a company is to make AI accessible to as many impact-driven organizations (profit or not-for-profit) as possible, so we try to make the program affordable also for very early-stage startups. For pre-seed and bootstrapped startups, we apply a “Pay What You Can” policy which is fair to both sides. We ask to pay a small upfront fee to ensure that the startup client is serious, and the remaining fees can be paid within 12 months (upon the end of the program when and if you get an investment round or generate revenues).

Omdena’s approach is very different. Our focus is on identifying hidden talent who often will be overlooked on other platforms, which makes our model very cost-effective. In addition, Omdena handpicks the talent pool and manages the projects, so we are responsible to deliver the solutions. Other platforms only connect you to a large pool of developers, and your responsibility will be to select and manage the team.

Unfortunately, we cannot. But we mitigate the risk of no results by selecting the right engineers for the project and having the right processes in place. We have executed over 150 challenges and proudly we can say that more than 95% have been successful.

As you can imagine, it can easily get overwhelming for past clients to talk to many prospective clients of Omdena. So instead, we provide a list of video testimonials from startup founders, NGOs, and other client organizations. Here is our full portfolio of clients. You can also find a dedicated page on our website with all our Partner Success Stories & Testimonials

Every month we get 1000+ applications to join Omdena projects. The selection process looks at various factors like motivation, skill, time available, etc to select the people who will be part of a project. The team is also selected based on the inputs from you as a client (like time zone, skill set, etc.). Here you can take a glimpse of some of our talent. Inexperienced students are not accepted in our projects but we give them the opportunity to upskill via Omdena Academy or an Omdena Local Chapter Challenge.

There are many reasons such as the following:

• The experience of working with an international team of engineers
• The opportunity to work on a social impact problem
• To experiment with their tech skills in a challenging environment
• To share their knowledge and help others to grow

Omdena also provides a lot of benefits and perks to our community. Examples are tech mentorship, career development opportunities, paid projects for our top talent, etc.

You don’t need to worry about the project coordination. We will assign a product owner for project management. We run more than 150 AI Innovation Challenges per year and we have deep expertise in how to effectively manage a large team of AI Engineers.

We apply a unique button-up-driven project management approach to unlock the collective intelligence of a large and diverse team. If you want to learn more about the structure of an 8 weeks AI Innovation Challenge please read our demo.

Your role during the AI Innovation Challenge is to provide domain expertise, and we expect you to be available for explaining to the team the problem statement and provide the domain knowledge when needed. Based on our learnings, you will need to provide 5-10 hrs/week to answer questions from collaborators.

There are several key differences such as the following:
1. Problem-driven talent: Omdena is a community-driven organization with intrinsically motivated engineers from diverse technical, industry-related, and cultural backgrounds. In other words, we match the most motivated and suitable engineers to your problem. “Omdena engineers are enthusiasts and interested in the problem of the company. This is key for complex projects to be successful, which almost no other company can offer as Omdena can”, says Abhimanyu Bhargava, CEO, Farm-Hand (UK).
2. Vetted: The Top 2% among more than 30.000 applications per year who have worked on similar projects and engagements.
3. Flexibility: You can work with solo engineers or teams of up to five engineers. Up and downscale according to your needs.
4. Hiring: The most important difference is that we want our top talent to be hired and get full-time jobs by other companies. When you work with an outsourcing company, you will not be able to hire developers directly. However, we know, in the mid to long term most organizations want to build in-house teams so through Omdena you can already start identifying your potential future employees.

The top 2% of Omdena’s collaborators. They are selected from more than 30,000 applications. To be selected for Omdena Top Talent Pool an engineer must work on at least two Omdena AI Innovation Challenges and perform extremely well in both of them. Through running over 300 AI Innovation Challenges we have built a strong talent pool of engineers from all around the world.

Due to our access to talent from around the world, we have a higher chance to accommodate your budget., the cost could vary a lot depending on the location of the engineers, the seniority, the tech stack required, and other factors.

Yes, it happens very often that the company decides to hire the top-performing engineers in-house from the project team. If you end up successfully hiring an engineer through Omdena we would ask you for a one-off 10% recruitment fee of the annual salary you offer to the engineer. The Top Talent Projects are a unique opportunity for you to acquire ‘hidden’ top talent in a very cost-effective compared to traditional hiring processes (like job ads + scanning through CVs + interviews).

We follow a three-step process:
1. Agreement: We define the project budget, team requirements (time zone, technical requirements, etc.), and team size.
2. Team selection: After the agreement is signed we select the team within two weeks. Usually, before the team selection, we have a second call between Omdena’s Head of Projects and you/ your CTO, so we make sure we are aligned regarding n your requirements.
3. Project kick-off: Once the project team has been confirmed we organize a kick-off meeting with you and start the project. As we know our engineers best (because they have worked with us for many months or years), we speed up the selection process by selecting the team for you. This is a faster and more reliable process based on our experience in running hundreds of successful projects. However, you have 14 days after the kick-off of the project to request a full refund if you are not satisfied with the team of engineers we have selected.

If you decide to not continue the project within 14 days from the kick-off call, we will refund you the full amount with no questions asked. However, to date, we have run over 80 top talent projects and never had someone ask to return the advance payment.