## 1 Introduction
Follow-up mechanisms for long-term mentorship or support are frequently insufficient. Additionally, current approaches often lack robust systems to protect intellectual property, maintain trustworthy data exchange, and ensure secure collaboration. As a result, participants may hesitate to share sensitive ideas or fully engage with potential partners. Many platforms also depend on manual or ad hoc methods of pairing innovators with mentors and investors, leading to suboptimal matches that fail to leverage the full potential of their expert networks. While global initiatives and platforms aim to support entrepreneurs and researchers, they often fall short of addressing the critical challenges faced by innovators, particularly those in smaller startups, under-represented regions, or academic institutions. Therefore, the main challenges of systems that support innovation are as follows:  
**Access to expertise**: Innovators often struggle to connect with domain-specific experts who can provide the mentorship and guidance necessary for refining their ideas into viable business models. Current innovation hubs or consultancy platforms typically cater to larger organizations or well-connected individuals, creating an uneven playing field. This results in a gap where smaller startups or individual innovators lack the support required to thrive. **Lack of secure collaboration frameworks**: The exchange of ideas between innovators and mentors poses risks related to intellectual property (IP) protection. Without robust mechanisms to ensure the confidentiality of sensitive information, innovators may hesitate to share their ideas, fearing unauthorized usage or theft. Existing platforms rarely provide tamper-proof, transparent, and traceable systems to safeguard such collaborations. **Inefficiency in matchmaking**: Traditional matchmaking between innovators and mentors is often manual, relying on limited databases or personal networks. This approach fails to consider the specific needs of the innovator, the expertise of the mentor, or the potential synergies between the two. As a result, many promising collaborations are either delayed or fail to materialize altogether. **Little or no incentivization**: The lack of structured and transparent reward mechanisms for mentors discourages high-quality participation from domain experts. Existing platforms typically do not have adequate systems to recognize or incentivize meaningful contributions, resulting in low engagement levels and diminished trust in the ecosystem. **Under-representation of marginalized groups**: Innovators from under-represented regions or demographics frequently lack access to innovation resources, mentors, and funding. These systemic barriers perpetuate inequality and exclude valuable contributions from diverse perspectives that could enrich the innovation landscape. **Absence of scalable and transparent systems**: The innovation process involves multiple stakeholders, such as mentors, innovators, investors, and regulators. Each stakeholder requires secure access to data and a transparent workflow. Current centralized platforms struggle to scale while maintaining transparency, trust, and accountability across these diverse groups. Without accessible and secure platforms, many brilliant ideas fail to see the light of day, ultimately resulting in lost opportunities for economic growth and societal benefit. Furthermore, the absence of transparent systems contributes to mistrust among stakeholders, hindering collaboration and investment. The proposed solution is **SPARK-IT: Igniting Innovation with Trust, Collaboration, and Expert Mentorship**, which is a decentralized innovation ecosystem designed to address critical challenges in connecting innovators with experts, fostering collaboration, and enabling secure idea development.