Sandbox Innovation: Potentials and Impacts

Abstract

We introduce this collection on "sandbox innovation," where innovative practices are separated and nurtured within a confined, risk-controlled environment, akin to a child’s sandbox. Originating in software development as a protective mechanism for experimental tasks, the sandbox concept has expanded to the entrepreneurial realm, offering a "safe space" for experimenting with new ideas. While such frameworks, including hackathons and incubator programs, foster creativity without the hindrances of real-world complexities, they also raise critical questions about the real-world applicability and responsibilities of innovations once they exit these controlled environments. This paper further explores the anthropology of entrepreneurship, revealing how sandboxing has become both an explicit and implicit practice within innovation ecosystems. Drawing upon various perspectives, the research calls for a deeper examination of the sandbox’s boundaries, emphasizing the need for ongoing, responsive innovation that takes into account the ever-evolving intricacies of social life and the broader responsibilities of real-world impact.

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY

There’s a growing trend in innovation scenes of using "sandboxes"—safe spaces where ideas can be explored without the complications of real-world challenges. These sandboxes, like hackathons and workshops, provide a playground for innovators to experiment freely. However, as these innovations leave the sandbox for the real world, they face complexities and responsibilities that were shielded within the confined space. In this article, we introduce this collection, which delves into the concept of sandboxing and its impact on entrepreneurial practices. First, we contextualize sandboxes as one technology of innovation, similar to post-it notes, pitches, and prototypes. These common technologies of innovation influence how people practice innovation and thus how they think about it. We argue that while these sandboxes can be crucially liberating when explicitly practiced, they can also limit responsiveness to social life when left implicit. Lora, studying a German makeathon, discusses the explicit use of sandboxes to encourage risk-taking in a controlled environment. Meanwhile, Angela describes how Stockholm’s innovation ecosystem unintentionally hinders entrepreneurs from addressing how their innovations interact with real-world social issues by implicitly encompassing entrepreneurship in an ecosystem-wide sandbox. The clash between the confined sandbox and the unbounded reality of entrepreneurship sparks a crucial question: How can we responsibly navigate the impact of innovations beyond the sandbox? The collection highlights the need to dismantle implicit sandboxes, promoting ongoing collaboration and responsiveness to emerging outcomes. It questions the role of sandboxes in shaping our perception of innovation and calls for a deeper understanding of their influence.

Keywords:

• Innovation
• entrepreneurship
• sandbox

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, we would like to thank our fieldwork participants and collaborators. We would like to thank and acknowledge the organizations that funded and supported the research that started this conversation. Angela VandenBroek thanks the American-Scandinavian Foundation for supporting her Stockholm-based research on Innovation through the Thord-Gray Memorial Fund. Lora Koycheva thanks the Joachim Herz Foundation and the Entrepreneurship Research Institute at the Technical Univeristy of Munich. All errors are, as always, our own.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lora Koycheva

Lora Koycheva is an anthropologist, technologist, and founder working at the intersection of anthropology, innovation and entrepreneurship, and robotics. With more than 20 years research experience, she has most recently focused on academic venturing and moonshot innovation practices in Germany, where she has also practiced as a coach and mentor to startups through makeathons and workshops. Together with Matt Artz, she is editor of a book on anthropological careers in emerging tech (forthcoming from Routledge). As a founder, she is currently building Robots, actually!—a global initiative to rebuild the human condition with robots. She has taught and researched at Northwestern University, University College London, and the Technical University of Munich, and is currently assistant professor at the Chair for Technoscience Studies at the Brandenburg Technical University.

Angela VandenBroek

Angela VandenBroek is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas State University, where she combines her research on innovation and entrepreneurship with her nearly two decades of experience as an applied anthropologist in design, branding, and information technologies in research and teaching. Broadly speaking, her work sits at the intersection of business and design anthropology and science and technology studies and focuses on how ambitions for better futures by states, citizens and entrepreneurs are coopted and reformed by innovation culture and its infrastructures. She’s conducted research in Stockholm Sweden’s startup and innovation ecosystem and has started new research among entrepreneurs in the Texas innovation corridor between Austin and San Antonio.