New XPrizes to Focus on Alzheimer’s, Clean Air, Cybersecurity, Democracy and Zero Waste Mining

October 16, 2017 – The XPrize, a competition that tackles global issues and provides substantial cash prizes to individuals and companies to address them, is moving from getting to outer space more cheaply, landing on the Moon, and saving the ocean’s coral reefs, to a series of new goals based on its latest gathering in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

At the Visioneers Summit last week, 250 people watched presentations aimed at influencing XPrize adjudicators. Presenters chose a global problem and proposed a solution. Then the gathering which included political leaders, philanthropists, technologists, artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs assessed what they saw based on a number of criteria including the ability to get public engagement including crowdsourcing, attracting prime sponsorship money, and the proposed solutions scalability to meet the global need.

Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease won the most votes. The presentation, sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Brain Trust, called for the development of better early detection technology than what currently is available. The team is led by Philip Edgcumbe, a biomedical engineer, doctor-in-training, and entrepreneur, working with Ken Dychtwald, a leading expert in the medical field on aging.

The audience in its response to the Alzheimer’s presentation was overwhelmingly in favour of future competition prizes aimed at rewarding research that would lead to treatment and the ultimate eradication of the disease. It is likely the Alzheimer’s prize will be worth millions of dollars to the individuals and companies that compete.

For the first time at a XPrize meeting, four additional global issues got significant votes leading to XPrize announcing its intentions to find sponsorship and crowdfunded money for them. The presentations that won out include: Clean Air, sponsored by Green China, Cybersecurity, sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Singapore, Will of the People, sponsored by Accenture, and Zero Waste Mining, sponsored by the Chilean Mining Consortium.

The Clean Air proposal focused on empowering and enabling people to improve air quality and is led by Christine Harada who served at the Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, under President Barack Obama.

The Cybersecurity presentation focused on creating emerging technologies to develop integrated, automated, intelligent solutions designed to scan and protect digital networks, identifying vulnerabilities, and automatically repairing them to create safer connectivity globally. The team is led by Yair Laron and Or Suesskind, the former a member of Israel’s Intelligence Corps, and the latter an innovation consultant for Deloitte Israel and senior cyber-strategy consultant to the Israeli government.

Will of the People focused on saving democracy and preserving and strengthening self-government, looking at threats to democracy, beginning with the ability for all citizens to vote and to trust and verify that their vote is counted. The team is led by Joe Trippi, a lead strategist for Jerry Brown, the Governor of California, and President of Trippi & Associates.

Zero Waste Mining focused on innovations that eliminate waste from extraction processes in metals, minerals, and rare earth mining operations avoiding environmental threats and health hazards from tailings, including arsenic and acids. The team is led by Carl Brackpool, a Product & Innovation Manager at Hexagon Mining, and a faculty member at the Colorado School of Mines.

The Visioneers Summit also committed to raising tens of millions of dollars for previous XPRIZE campaigns focused on cancer, assistive medical devices, and avatar technologies. The XPrize currently has eight active prizes on the go.