The XPRIZE Foundation Crowdsources to World Luminaries
It can take more than governments, boardrooms and think tanks to solve some of the world’s largest problems or inconsistencies. It may take a global community to come together to provide alternative solutions that may only be possible through the provision of a common ground. That denominator is the problem-solving XPRIZE Foundation, which presents global issues that need remedying through crowdsourcing.
In the time since 1994, when XPRIZE began, there have been 17 concerns that needed addressing on the topics of space, oceans, learning, health, energy, environment, transportation, safety and technology. These matters of global importance have reached out to people for advice in the form of competitions. Rewards are given to individuals or groups contributing luminous proposals to solve areas that have previously been unfathomable.
Since the first XPRIZE contest on private spaceflight, the $10 million award provided a breakthrough by producing a lucrative industry that continues to grow explosively. Other prizes, ranging from $1.4 million to $140 million, have focused on areas such as literacy, decontamination of oil spills and remote self-administered health diagnoses.
These substantial prizes, awarded to individuals or groups who produce solutions to overcome areas of concern, also require trophies to recognize the magnitude of the projects. The online 3D CAD community and CAD design company Cad Crowd was chosen to host contests to develop trophies for the various XPRIZE Visioneering awards for 2018.
XPRIZE Visioneering – Feeding the Next Billion Trophy Contest
With the Cad Crowd crowdsourcing platform, XPRIZE ran a contest to design a trophy to be given for the best solution submitted to XPRIZE for feeding the world’s increasing population. This XPRIZE challenge, entitled Feeding the Next Billion, asked entrants to find a way for most people to get access to healthy, nutritious food through groundbreaking methods. One finalist challenge required food to be grown for 100 people in a soil-less system in a 40-foot (12.2-meter) container; whereas another task was for the planning of a pest and disease network for African countries that could predict, monitor and control harmful species of crops and livestock.
The trophy awarded for this competition was required to be simple yet elegant and incorporate the minimum amount of material for 3D printing. The meaning of this trophy, as well as the other XPRIZE awards, is to “build a bridge to abundance for all,” in this case referring to a worldwide attainable food supply.
From the entries, designer RBLdesign from Milan, Italy won with this submission of outstretched hands holding seeds.
XPRIZE Visioneering – Lifting Farmers Out of Poverty Trophy Contest
On the same subject as food, XPRIZE had another trophy design competition on ways to increase farmers’ salaries in areas where they live in poverty. Aptly named Lifting Farmers Out of Poverty, finalists were required to put forward ideas for an inexpensive device that would extract water from food, while another was to propose a drone system that would pick up produce from farmers and take it to buyers using an Uber-like technology for ordering, payment, and tracking.
Cad Crowd freelancers had to design a trophy for the winner of this competition with the same parameters of being simple yet appealing, and incorporating the least amount of materials for 3D printing. Bangladesh CAD designer Mahbub from Dhaka has a passion for 3D modeling and goes by a saying from Walt Disney for his inspiration, “We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things because we are curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. Keep moving forward.” Mahbub moved forward by winning with this trophy design of an outstretched arm holding a spade on its base.
XPRIZE Visioneering – Off-Grid Energy Access Trophy Contest
When XPRIZE has its annual awards presentation, called the Visioneering Summit, a distinguished list of attendees is included. In addition to sponsors of the various competitions that can be organizations, foundations, and individuals, there are also leading entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 CEOs, philanthropists, Nobel Prize laureates and celebrities. With a guest list like this, it’s little wonder that many of the ideas presented at this event evolve into programs with the purpose of providing a more sustainable, efficient, people-focused world.
To power transportation, technology, industry and houses, useable energy is required. Many areas of the world don’t have reliable sources while 1.2 billion people don’t have electricity. This XPRIZE competition looked at Off-grid Energy Access as one of its themes to find alternate sources of power. Refrigeration is an absolute necessity to prolong food and drug viability and the crowdsource challenge was to find a household refrigerator that costs less than $5 per month and an inexpensive icemaker capable of producing 2,205 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of ice daily. Another finalist challenge in this competition was to replicate conventional off-grid systems for half the cost.
The trophy design award for this XPRIZE competition was given to the representation of a house with solar panels and a sun on its roof. Top designer Anwar DM from Indonesia met the parameters of this challenge and used his 3D modeling skills to formulate the trophy’s design.
XPRIZE Visioneering – Saving Coral Reefs Trophy Contest
The extinction of many species is a tragic circumstance of the human population, industrialization and poor environmental practices. When species are threatened with survival, warning signals should go up as the biomass can become unbalanced when something becomes absent in the ecosystem. Included in threatened species is coral, which is an organism itself and home to many marine animals. In some parts of the world, notably the Great Barrier Reef, vast expanses of coral have died. XPRIZE set out to reverse this process by calling on individuals and groups to enter the competition Saving Coral Reefs.
One of the prizes of $10 million would go to the first entrant capable of planting 10,000 coral equivalents in one week to assist in coral reef restoration. A longer 4-year competition would require a method to grow coral larvae in a 0.4 square mile (one square kilometer) area that would show a 10% survival rate for at least a one-year duration.
Again, following the standardized parameters that an XPRIZE trophy should be simple, appealing and made from basic components for 3D printing, designer Milan Borovic from Montenegro was successful with this entry.
XPRIZE Visioneering -Natural Disaster Prediction Trophy Design
The increasing magnitudes of storms, earthquakes, and tsunamis have a staggering effect on many parts of the world. The improved ability to predict some of these events have helped in reducing a loss of life and property; however predictions are not always accurate or may not even be possible. XPRIZE aimed at improving prognostications by launching the Visioneering Natural Disaster Prediction competition.
The finalist entries would encompass a 4-year period for being able to predict earthquakes. The winning team would be able to warn of ten seismological events having a magnitude of 6 or higher at least an hour before they occurred. The other finalist entry in this category would crowdsource an unmanned device that was able to remain in the center of Category 3 hurricanes over 5-day periods and transmit accurate data.
Cad Crowd freelance designer Ashley Kimbel from Alabama, U.S.A. was chosen to have her trophy design presented as the winner of the XPRIZE Natural Disaster Prediction trophy design contest. It represents a tornado swirling in a geometrically designed sphere on its base.
XPRIZE Visioneering Summit – Trophy for Overall Winner
From the five winners of these competitions, an overall winner is chosen as the prize design of the year at XPRIZE’s 3-day Visioneering summit. Designer REDA from Nantes, France who modeled the golden XPRIZE emblem sitting on top of the world created the trophy design for their grand prize.
Cad Crowd has shown that its freelancers comprise a talented global community capable of producing trophies for XPRIZE’s highly prestigious awards ceremony. The available technical savvy for designing special awards is as straightforward as contacting Cad Crowd for your project. There is never any obligation or fee when contacting Cad Crowd for advice, and an accuracy guarantee backs all work by vetted freelancers. Cad Crowd may not be able to help solve the world’s problems as do these brilliant minds crowdsourced by XPRIZE, but it can positively contribute with 3D CAD design services and freelance engineering talent.