X Prize, the people that spurred the development of the first privately built and sucessfully tested spacecraft to leave Earth’s atmosphere, has announced something exciting:
By creating the first private race to space, the X PRIZE Foundation gave birth to a new industry with dramatic technological, social and investment opportunities. As a result of the dramatic nature of this achievement, the X PRIZE is now widely recognized as the leading model to foster innovation. The X PRIZE model is very unique. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, the X PRIZE spurs innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits. We are now evolving the X PRIZE Foundation into a world-class prize institute to create additional radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. We are actively researching the feasibility of new prizes in space, energy, genomics, education, nanotechnology, and prizes in the social arena.
What’s this mean? That libertarians everywhere may have the satisfaction of being able to say – see, we can advance without the help of a nanny state!
I’m particularly excited to see what will happen in the field of nanotechnology as the result of this potential development.
Hat tip: Better HumansÂÂ