The program allows organizations to post technical challenges to a global network of engineers, scientists and manufacturers, paying only for working solutions rather than hourly consulting fees or long-term contracts.

“You’re not choosing one consulting firm where everyone sits in a room and comes up with the same solution,” said Trisha Epp, Director of Innovation at Freelancer. “You’re having a competition where lots of people come up with their own divergent solutions. They each have a different, unique idea. They’re not influenced by each other.”

According to Freelancer, federal agencies have tested crowdsourced hardware and manufacturing solutions for more than 11 years through the Moonshot Innovation Program, reporting cost savings of 80% to 99% compared with traditional procurement methods, along with significantly shorter development timelines and improved outcomes. That system is now open to manufacturers.

One example cited by the company involved the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which needed performance improvements to a water management modeling system. A conventional approach would have required hiring an engineering firm at a cost exceeding $2 million and an 18-month development cycle. Instead, the agency ran a crowdsourced challenge with a $30,000 prize, resulting in a 60-fold performance improvement in roughly 60 days.

For manufacturers, the model represents a departure from traditional product development and process engineering, where work is typically kept in-house or assigned to a single supplier.

According to Freelancer, past challenges have produced solutions that moved directly into physical production, including spacecraft refueling hardware, lunar habitat components and emergency response systems incorporating virtual and augmented reality. Some hardware solutions were developed by small academic teams or independent engineers rather than established suppliers.