New Atlas

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$15 million XPrize to tackle youth illiteracy winds up with two winners

Nick Lavars May 16, 2019

The Global Learning XPrize, a worldwide competition to improve illiteracy in the developing world, has drawn to a close with judges unable to split two of the five finalists. The Kitkit School and onebillion teams will therefore share the US$10 million grand prize,

Announced in 2014, the Global Learning XPrize was drawn up with the aim of addressing the ...

Environment

Atmospheric water harvester takes out $1.5m XPrize

Nick Lavars October 20, 2018

After revealing the five finalists earlier in the year, the XPrize foundation has today announced the grand prize winner, which outshone almost 100 competitors with its superior ability to harvest fresh water from thin air.

Skysource/Skywater Alliance develops deployable machines that can harvest freshwater from the air

Wearables

Smart jewelry that sends out a call for help claims $1 million Women's Safety XPrize

Nick Lavars June 7, 2018

A discreet piece of smart jewelry that sends an alert to loved ones and tracks her location when a woman feels in danger has taken out the US$1 million XPrize for Women's Safety, the foundation has announced today.

Safer Pro, built into a wristwatch-like device

Environment Feature

XPrize's Marcius Extavour on how we can turn our CO2 problem into something useful

Nick Lavars April 10, 2018

Launched in 2015 and yesterday whittled down to 10 finalists, the Carbon XPrize has now progressed to its final stage. As these teams prepare for this final phase, New Atlas chatted with XPrize's Dr Marcius Extavour about the possibilities that their solutions may bring.

XPrize's senior director of energy and resources, Dr Marcius Extavour

Environment

10 teams advance to final stage of $20 million Carbon XPrize

Nick Lavars April 9, 2018

The Carbon XPrize is a US$20 million competition that invited competing teams to develop technologies that can capture C02 and convert it into products of value. Organizers have today announced the 10 finalists who will look to dramatically scale up their solutions.

XPrize finalist CERT from Toronto, Canada, is creating new building blocks for industrial chemicals using C02

Space

XPrize breathes new life into failed moon landing competition

Nick Lavars April 5, 2018

The Google Lunar Xprize, a decade-long competition to put a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, may have come to an anticlimactic end but organizers aren't conceding defeat just yet. They have today announced plans to re-launch the competition.

The Lunar XPrize has been granted another life

Environment

XPrize reduces its Water Abundance competition to five finalists

Nick Lavars March 22, 2018

Back in October 2016, the XPrize foundation turned its attention to the issue of water security, launching a US$1.75 million Water Abundance Prize aiming to inspire ideas that can draw water from the atmosphere. It has just announced its five finalists.

A $250,000 milestone prize will be split between the five finalists of the XPrize Water Abundance ...

Robotics

$10 million XPrize contest looks to usher in the era of real-life robotic avatars

Nick Lavars March 12, 2018

XPrize contests are nothing if not examples of big picture thinking. The organization has just announced a new initiative to accelerate the development of real-life robotic avatars, which could one day be used to remotely carry out tasks like care-giving or disaster relief from miles away.

Space

After a decade, Google's Lunar XPrize is set to end with no winner

Rich Haridy January 23, 2018

After a decade Google’s Lunar XPrize is set to end with no winner. An announcement from Google recently suggested the March 31st deadline would not be extended and a subsequent update from the XPrize team confirmed that no team will launch in time and the $30 million prize will remain unclaimed

Google's Lunar Xprize is officially over with no team able to successfully achieve the competition's goals ...

Good Thinking

Global Learning XPrize finalists handed $1 million to build education software

Nick Lavars September 18, 2017

The XPrize Global Learning challenge was aimed at solving developing technology solutions for the hundreds of millions of children around the world that cannot read, write or do basic arithmetic. The competition has now been whittled down to five finalists.

The winner of the Global Learning XPrize will receive US$10 million