M.O.P.
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Inscrit le: 11 Mar 2004
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 Posté le: Sam 09 Oct 2004 09:19 Sujet du message: New X Prize Sets Sights on Science |
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http://www.space.com/news/new_xprize_041007.html
http://www.wtnxprize.org/
| Citation: | About The WTN X PRIZE
The concept of the WTN X PRIZES is to utilize the concepts, procedures, technologies and publicity developed X PRIZE Foundation's Ansari X PRIZE competition for space and the global science and technology innovators identification process and community developed by the World Technology Network (WTN) to launch a series of technology prizes seeking to meet the greatest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.
The X PRIZE competition focused on jumpstarting a private space industry has re-proven the principle – strongly proven in the early years of the 20th century for the aviation industry – that innovation can indeed be catalyzed. That principle can and should be extended to other global challenges and opportunities and together we at the World Technology Network (WTN) and the X PRIZE Foundation are committed to doing just that.
What challenges/opportunities should be selected?
Although the idea of using the X PRIZE concept work in other areas is at first glance a simple and attractive one, a great deal of up-front thought needs to go into what challenges/opportunities would be selected. One could argue that there were certain qualities about the challenges and opportunities in both the aviation field and the space field that lent themselves extremely well to a private sector competition of the sorts which have occurred. Variables to be looked at might include:
The maturity (or lack thereof) of the technology around which the competition would be based?
The maturity (or lack thereof) of the related industries from which a new industry would be born
The number of potential “competitors” potentially able to meet the challenge or at least the depth of the pool from which potential competitors could be drawn
The level of the specificity of the challenge
The financial resources potentially available to finance the potential competitors
The financial resources potentially available to finance the Prize itself
How potentially compelling and exciting is the field around which the challenge would be based
The amenability of the target area to a threshold change in public expectation
The replicability of the challenge to other areas?
The level of the presumed long-term benefit to business and society
The list of questions above is by no means exhaustive, but does give a sense of how the selection of a new challenge is not as first as simple as it may seem. It is absolutely key that the right challenges are selected – sufficiently exciting to compel hearts and minds, sufficiently ambitious to reach beyond what is already likely going to occur soon and to have a truly substantial impact, and sufficiently focused to have a good chance of succeeding within a reasonable timescale.
Potential types of challenges?
Here is a very rough and incomplete list of the sorts of challenges that might be appropriate:
Medical challenges, such a cure for cancer or other major diseases.
Technological “holy grails”, such as artificial intelligence, teleportation, molecular assemblers (true nanotechnology), cold fusion, or a believable virtual reality system
Major global challenges, such as the various UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) announced by the world’s leaders at the UN in 2000 at the Millennium Summit.
Why We Are Asking You For Suggestions?
There are over billions of people on the planet, almost each of whom has a dream for a better world. The chances of us finding a truly worthwhile series of challenges for the WTN X PRIZE competitions over the coming years are that much greater the more suggestions we receive. We are asking you because your dreams are the repository of an enormous amount of creativity and hope. In the spirit of man’s first reach into space, we ask you to stretch your imagination to help take humanity to the next level. Are you up to the challenge?
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New X Prize Sets Sights on Science, Technology and Social Solutions
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 07 October 2004
04:52 pm ET
The X Prize Foundation and the World Technology Network announced today the formation of a joint venture to launch a series of technology incentive prizes to help spur innovation and breakthroughs in a range of scientific arenas.
The creation of new X Prize awards follows the success of the twin SpaceShipOne flights that snagged the $10 million Ansari X Prize purse. However, these are focused on other arenas, such as medicine, environment, energy, nanotechnology, and informatics.
The unveiling of new technology incentive prizes was made in San Francisco, California today during the World Technology Network’s 2004 World Technology Summit and Awards meeting.
The World Technology Network (WTN) is comprised of more than 800 individuals and organizations from over 50 countries nominated and judged by their peers to be the most innovative in the science and technology world. WTN is focused on matching creative talent with technological issues of the day in the hopes of jump starting breakthroughs.
Unexpected results
"When the X Prize was first announced in 1996, industry experts scoffed at the concept of private space travel," said Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation in a press statement. "This week, eight years later, the world watched with wonder as SpaceShipOne successfully conquered that exact challenge. Incentive prizes cause amazing, unexpected results," he said.
The new set of prizes are intended to inspire innovation and bring about breakthrough results with wide-ranging societal implications, such as life extension, molecular assemblers, water purification, hydrogen generation, and similarly ambitious goals.
Commercially, they are intended to create leaps in research and development that will benefit all participants and open new markets.
"The really exciting thing, I think, about this...is that the sky’s the limit," said James Clark, founder and chairman of the WTN.
Both groups are looking to identify Fortune 500 companies interested in assisting in the creation of the prizes by funding the purse in turn for title sponsorship rights.
Privately-funded solutions
According to the X Prize Foundation and the World Technology Network, examples of privately-funded solutions in scientific and social fields might include the following:
1. Transportation: Demonstration of a 4-seat vehicle able to achieve 200 miles per gallon in a cross country race
2. Nanotechnology: Construction of a pre-determined molecule by an assembler
3. Aging deceleration: Extension of mammal life, or demonstrated evidence of aging reversal
4. Education: Demonstration of a self-sufficient education facility able to operate independently and educate villagers anywhere on the planet
Open door policy on ideas
Be it radical new forms of energy production, a cure for a specific disease that’s not being properly addressed, or even how teleportation might become public point-to-point travel – there’s an open-door policy on ideas.
"We’re in a public suggestion phase. And that phase ought to be the phase when no idea is too far out and no idea is too ambitious," Clark advised.
"There are several billion people on this planet. They all have dreams. They all have visions. There are hundreds and thousands of scientists and technologists, if not millions, with specific challenges that they have in mind in their fields. There are thousands and thousands of companies with the resources to put up the sponsorship for these sorts of prizes. The exciting thing right now is to see what ideas people can come up with," Clark explained.
Permission to take risks
Diamandis said that we now live in a risk adverse society.
"What we’re trying to do is to incentivize progress," he told SPACE.com, for people to look beyond the immediate cutting edge, beyond small incremental improvement, and motivate some real breakthroughs.
"One of the elements that a prize does is that it gives people permission to take risks…it credentials their risk taking," Diamandis added.
The first WTN-X Prizes are expected to be announced in six months.
The WTN and X Prize Foundation have developed a website to court competitors and attract sponsors: http://www.wtnxprize.org/ |
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