XPrize

The XPrize foundation has today launched a new US$10 million competition geared towards preserving the world's rainforests, a process that begins with building new technologies to help us better appreciate what they have to offer.

The Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize drew plenty of interesting ideas in its bid to inspire new solutions for mapping the world's oceans, but it was team GEBCO-NF that triumphed, with its vehicle designed to autonomously survey the seafloor over long periods of time.​​​

​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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

​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.

​​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.

​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.​​

​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

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.