08 January 2009

Ocean X-Prizes ~ Exploring Possible Challenges

We just finished a two-day X-Prize workshop at MIT exploring possible new challenges with an Oceans theme. Organized by Erika Wagner, who runs the MIT X-Prize Lab, and Jaison Morgan from the X-Prize Foundation, this session brought together a couple dozen students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs, journalists and other oceans enthusiasts. In addition to thinking about what qualifies as a compelling prize, we learned about how to organize things, maximize promotional value, catalyze new industries, learn from past prizes, and more. We split into four idea teams and in the end, proposed two preliminary concept themes:
  • Treasure Quest -- Discovery and mapping of wonderous ecological, geological, and archaeological marine riches, and
  • Blue Space Race -- a Tour de Oceans competition via Formula One-like manned submersibles in the briny deep

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