Do you have a talent for chemistry?  How about engineering?  Do you love to tinker with mechanical things?  Are you just a fountain of great ideas and inventions?
Would you like to be paid for it?

I heard about this on NPR.  It started as a discussion about crowd sourcing and grew from there.
There is a web-based company called InnoCentive.  They are a brokerage of sorts; bringing companies with problems or wants together with the people that happen to have great ideas on how to solve these problems.  What's even better is that the solvers are anonymous to the company.  Often the companies themselves are anonymous, too.  This seems to me to be a great way to bring innovation to the forefront in a myriad of industries. 
This blurb is from their website:
InnoCentive® is an exciting web-based community matching top scientists to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies from around the globe. We provide a powerful online forum enabling major companies to reward scientific innovation through financial incentives.

....and....

InnoCentive matches top scientists to relevant research and development challenges facing leading companies around the globe, for rewards up to $100,000 USD or more.

I encourage you to check them out!