X Prize Foundation to ‘Crowdfund’ 3 Competitions
October 25, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
The X Prize Foundation, which organizes multimillion-dollar challenges to pursue scientific and technological breakthroughs, will enlist the public in determining the goals—and providing the financial support—for three contests over the next seven years, reports The Christian Science Monitor.
The effort to crowdsource competition ideas and crowdfund purses marks a shift for the nonprofit foundation, which in the past has organized contests in partnership with, and based on the goals of, big-pocketed donors. The latest is a $2-million challenge to develop a sensor to greatly expand scientists’ ability to measure oceanic pollution, supported by philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, the wife of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.
“The grand challenges are problems of big importance for humanity,” Paul Bunje, a senior X Prize director, said of the crowd-based effort. “It’s critical for us that we are involving as much of a swath of humanity as possible.”
