Officials with
the U.S.-based X Prize Foundation will unveil plans for the largest
international cash contest to date next week, but they are keeping details on
the new challenge under wraps.
The
specifics on the new cash prize, which is promised to be in the "tens of
millions of dollars" and bankrolled by "a very exciting and
well-known Fortune 500 company," will be revealed Sept. 13 at the WIRED
NextFest technology fair in Los Angeles, Calif., the foundation announced
Monday.
"The
actual announcement and details on what the prize is and its sponsorship will
be released on that day," X Prize Foundation spokesperson Sarah Evans told
SPACE.com. "We're very excited and we'll share it with the world on
Sept. 13."
Foundation
officials said the new purse and contest will be "the largest
international prize in history," and promised more details after the
NextFest opening ceremony next week.
Led by Peter
Diamandis, the Santa Monica, California-based X Prize Foundation has offered
a series of cash-prize competitions to support the development of new
technologies. Since awarding its first cash award—the $10
million Ansari X Prize for privately built spacecraft—the foundation has
since broadened its mandate to include prizes for feats in the genomics and the
automotive fields.
"We
currently have new X Prizes in development in the areas of space, energy,
medicine, education and the social arena," the foundation has stated on
its Web site.
Won in
2004, the Ansari X Prize marked the foundation's first contest to offer a cash
award for privately funded technological prowess. The competition called for
teams to launch their homegrown, piloted spacecraft into suborbital space, an
altitude of at least 62 miles (100 kilometers), twice in two weeks. Mojave
Aerospace Ventures, a team led by aerospace veteran Burt Rutan and financed by
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, took home the contest's $10 million purse after
two successful flights of the air-launched SpaceShipOne
vehicle.
This
October, the X Prize officials will also hold the annual, spaceflight-themed
Wirefly X Prize Cup in New Mexico. There, the foundation expects to oversee the
second Northrop
Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge for NASA, as well as award the first-ever
$9,000 Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation purse to high school students.
The
foundation is also offering the $10 million Archon Genomics X Prize for any
team capable of sequencing 100 human genomes in 10 days. It is also drawing up
plans for a multimillion-dollar reward for the first group to successfully
design, build and sell a 100 mile-per-gallon automobile.
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