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$10 million PRIZES

Asking Price: $400,000.00

Listed by: Jai 9 months, 1 week ago (Jan 3, 2008)

For Sale: Ideas | 509 views

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The X PRIZE Foundation (http://www.xprize.org) is seeking planning grants of $400,000 to develop the next generation of $10 million prizes to benefit humanity. If you are ready to make a philanthropic investment and are discouraged by the old model of giving away money in hopes that something will happen, then consider prize philanthropy.

Here's some background and context for how prize philanthropy works and why the X PRIZE Foundation is leading the next generation of innovation through competition.

The X PRIZE Foundation's strategy for fostering innovation is unique. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, we create competitions to solve the important challenges facing humanity. Our prize purses are set at a minimum of $10 million, and we spend a great deal of effort launching prizes with global exposure (it can take between 8-12 months refining the prize concept before launching, but the results are a guaranteed proof of concept and a leverage factor of 10-50x from the initial investment). Our success with the Ansari X PRIZE (2004), the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics (currently active) and the Google Lunar X PRIZE (currently active) is emblematic of our areas of interest, but we have expanded our mission and are now seeking prize ideas in other areas. Here are just a few categories that we are exploring: renewable energy (production, storage, distribution); cancer research; vision restoration; healthcare reform; education; deep space/sea exploration; global poverty reduction; artificial intelligence; human longevity. We are ambitious and entertain prize ideas in many other areas, and we are hopeful that the power of crowdsourcing will help us attract the next great prize idea worth launching. If you have a particular interest, such as restoring vision to the blind or building a new source of clean, renewable fuel, consider investing in a prize. The benefit is that you're guaranteed results. Where else can you find that much leverage? For the purpose of this invitation, we are seeking planning grants of $400,000 to investigate prize ideas that represent your biases and preference(s) and to pursue core concepts that can lead to potential prize launch(es).

Here are the steps that you can take to begin exploring your prize idea:

1. The X PRIZE Foundation will begin exploring a prize idea at a projected cost of $400,000 once you have contacted us to determine if your area of interest is ripe for breakthrough innovation using the model of prize philanthropy;
2. Once you have submitted your area of interest, a committee forms to investigate the subject matter;
3. A panel of highly recognizable experts convenes to discuss emerging issues and promising topics;
4. A report is generated on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, annually) to inform investors of progress towards the final prize idea;
5. Once the X PRIZE Foundation and an assembly of highly reputable experts have settled on one or more prize ideas, the basic concept is presented to the Board of Trustees and a Council of investors (for final screening);
6. The prize idea, based on it's most current iteration, is presented to potential purse sponsors (to secure a minimum purse size of $10 million and projected operations) - all planning grant providers are offered right of first refusal for purse sponsorship and naming rights.

To provide further context, here is a basic review of the history and success(es) of prizes.

THE POWER OF PRIZES

Public prizes for extraordinary achievement are proven, time-honored incentive methods. One of the most famous prizes in history led to the development of accurate nautical navigation. As the leading maritime power in the 18th Century, England had a vast strategic interest in finding a useful means for its ships to establish their precise location at sea.

In 1714 the English Parliament passed the Longitude Act which offered a prize of £20,000 (about USD $2.5 million in present value) for the person who devised a reliable means for a ship captain to establish his longitude within half a degree of accuracy. Although scientists of the era sought celestial solutions to the problem, the question ultimately was answered not by an astronomer but rather by a clock maker, John
Harrison. Typical of prize winners, Harrison invented an entirely unique solution. He designed and built the world's first chronometer �" a special clock capable of keeping accurate time under the adverse circumstances of life at sea. An early test voyage proved Harrison's chronometer's ability to establish longitude within a few miles through the duration of a trans-Atlantic voyage.

In 1919 Raymond Orteig, a wealthy French hotelier, offered $25,000 for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the $25,000 Orteig Prize, a leverage factor of 16x. It is difficult today to fully appreciate the impact of Lindbergh’s flight, but the following facts provide a small indication about how a single prize changed the way people thought about flight, and about the world itself:
• Increase in US airline passengers from 5,782 in 1926 to 173,405 in 1929
• 300% increase in the number applications for pilot’s licenses in the US in 1927
• 400% increase in the number of licensed aircraft in America in 1927
• The number of airports in the United States doubled within three years of Lindbergh’s feat
• The Spirit of St. Louis aircraft was personally viewed by a quarter of all
Americans within one year of Lindbergh’s historic flight
• Today, the global aviation industry is estimated at a value of more than $300 billion

Inspired by the Orteig Prize, the first X PRIZE was announced in 1996 to stimulate "Revolution through Competition" by offering a $10 million prize to the first privately financed team who could build and fly a three-passenger vehicle 100 kilometers into space twice within a two week period. As it was later titled, the Ansari X PRIZE for
Suborbital Spaceflight inspired 26 teams from seven nations to compete and invest more than $100 million in pursuit of the $10 million purse. On October 4, 2004 the Ansari X PRIZE was awarded to Mojave Aerospace Ventures marking the beginning of the personal spaceflight revolution and signifying a renaissance in prize philanthropy.

X PRIZE �" The New Model of Prize Philanthropy

The flight of SpaceShipOne was ground-breaking in two respects. First, it clearly established that non-government sponsored spaceflight was achievable and practical by launching an entirely new industry of space tourism. Second, it reestablished that large, inducement prizes are highly effective tools for stimulating creativity, inducing investment, and spurring innovative and unique answers to challenging problems.

While there are literally thousands of prizes awarded annually, most are retrospective awards. Similar in design to the Nobel Prize, most prizes are acknowledgements of achievements in a certain field, but the prize does not specify ahead of time what the achievement will be. While retrospective prizes encourage or “push” people to solve challenges, inducement prizes “pull” innovators and entrepreneurs out of the woodwork and provide them with a raison d'être.

The X PRIZE Foundation carries forward the principles established by earlier prize efforts that the systematic awarding of inducement prizes directed at specific societal challenges are the most effective and efficient means to stimulate revolutionary breakthroughs.

The X PRIZE Foundation bestows far more than financial rewards for achieving precise goals. By clearly defining finish line up front, we indirectly manufacture breakthrough results. People stop asking “can it be done?” and start thinking “how will we be the first to do it?” In the jargon of science, a paradigm shift occurs. Limits become mere challenges and barriers all of a sudden become breakable. Suddenly it’s no longer a question of “if” but rather “when?”

The X PRIZE Foundation does not impose budgets, reporting requirements or overhead because we offer prizes, not grants. We free entrepreneurs from the very constraints they find most limiting, and encourage them to invest every intellectual and financial resource at their command to solve the problem, reach the goal and win the prize.
By nature only one team can win each prize. But society ultimately benefits from all the efforts, many of which may prove to have commercially-viable applications even if they are not the first to reach the finish line (re: the “American Idol effect”).

The concept of prize philanthropy is enormously powerful. The purpose of the X PRIZE is to reinvent the proven model of prize philanthropy with an expanded mission to create substantial breakthroughs, in a wide range of endeavors, for the benefit of humanity.

Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Google, put it best, “The success that the X PRIZE Foundation has achieved so far with minimal
resources is astounding. It is the kind of leverage that we all look for. The X PRIZE model has huge potential to unlock innovation around the grand challenges that are important to each of us.”

You are welcome to submit your prize ideas today through Cambrian House.

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