characteristics: Dispersed Membership: technology allows members to be spread over the world. Regardless of the location, members share a common goal and are convinced of their common cause. Interdependent Membership: cooperation between members is key to achieve common goal. The work of one member is affected and interdependent on the others' work. No simple chain of command: there is no superior command. It is a decentralized and self-organized system. Conflicts are solved without the need of a hierarchy or authority. Work towards a common goal: members are willing to contribute, work and share freely. They are intrinsically motivated to donate their work, create and share knowledge in favor of a common goal. Dependence on trust: cooperative behavior and mutual trust is needed to work efficiently within the network. Members act accordingly to an ethical code that states the rules and principles to be followed by all members. Usually, ethical codes include principles related to respect, consistency, reciprocity and rationality. There also are five essential elements of collaborative innovation networks (what Gloor calls as "genetic code"): 1. They are learning networks: they set an informal and flexible environment which facilitates and stimulates collaboration and the exchange of ideas, information and knowledge. 2. They need an ethical code: they agree on an ethical code that guides the conduct and behavior of the members. 3. They are based on trust and self-organization: members trust each other without the need of a centralized management. They are brought together by mutual respect and strong sense of shared beliefs. 4. They make knowledge accessible to everyone: CoINs nurture communication to an extent that information shared with everyone. Nowadays, with internet and social medias, their ideas and concepts achieve a global level. 5. They operate in internal honesty and transparency: they create a system based on reciprocal trust and mutually established principles. Examples CoINs have been developing many disruptive innovations such as the Internet, Linux, the Web and Wikipedia. These inventions were created in universities or labs by a group of students with little or no budget. They were not focused on the money but on the sense of accomplishment. The Web is the early version of Internet. It was driven by a CoIN of intrinsically motivated people that wanted to improve technical development and launch a disruptive solution. Their goal was to link mainframes and allow multiple users simultaneously. Another contribution was Linux, an operating system