A WINNING INNOVATION FOR PHILANTHROPY American Public Media, March 2, 2007 Friday, 891 words American Public Media March 2, 2007 Friday SHOW: APM MARKETPLACE 12:00 AM EST A WINNING INNOVATION FOR PHILANTHROPY ANCHORS: BOB MOON LENGTH: 891 words BOB MOON (HOST) Google is expected to announce this weekend that it's joining with the X Prize Foundation. The Internet powerhouse is going to help raise money for 10 new X Prizes to benefit humanity. Try Googling the X Prize Foundation and you'll learn that the idea that started as a way to encourage commercial space flight. And now, other prizes for all kinds of technological achievements are popping up everywhere. Pat Loeb has her eyes on the prize business. ROBB WALTERS (GRADUATING STUDENT) Jim types in the command. And you see that the cars again is moving slowly down the street. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) I'm riding in a pickup truck with grad student, Rob Walters. But he's not driving. This is a robotic vehicle. ROBB WALTERS (GRADUATING STUDENT) And we come up to our target velocity, which is, in this case, 15 miles per hour. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Robb is a member of the Golden Loop. The team is competing for a $2 million-prize from DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. The mission, to build an unmanned vehicle that can drive through an urban area. ROBB WALTERS (GRADUATING STUDENT) It's kind of like having the world's largest remote control toy, right? PAT LOEB (REPORTER) DARPA is part of the Pentagon, which could use this technology in a war zone. In a way, the agency is returning to an old model for finding new technology. Government sponsored contest spurred some of the earliest scientific innovations. Take the 1714 Longitude prize. SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVELL (ADMIRAL OF GREAT BRITAIN) The navigation of his majesty's ships is the sole concerns his majesty's officers. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) The English parliament offered 20,000 pounds for an invention that would help sailors find their way at sea. It was so successful the French government offered a price for the preservation of food for its army. Canning was born. But the heyday of the scientific prize didn't last. Robin Hanson is an economist at George Mason University. He studied why prizes lost favor. ROBIN HANSON (ECONOMIST, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY) Scientists became more organized into our scientific societies and they lobbied a lot for more grant-like funding and agree on, it doesn't come with much in the way of strings. It's just a pile of money you can do with what you want. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Grants became the dominant force in scientific research. But today, grants are starting to give a little bit of room back to prizes. Thanks largely to the passion of Peter Diamantes. PETER DIAMANTES (CHAIRMAN, X PRIZE) I've had a passion to travel into space myself since I'd been a child. It's my mission in life. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Diamantes, the son of Greek immigrants, is the founder of the X Prize. When he realized he wasn't going to become an astronaut, he came up with the idea of offering a prize for inventors who could launch a private space flight. In 1996, he convinced the Ansari family of wealthy entrepreneurs to put up $10 million to award the winner. The challenge inspired 26 teams from seven countries. And in 2004, Mojave Aerospace Center has collected the prize. PETER DIAMANTES (CHAIRMAN, X PRIZE) Of the original, Ansari X Prize teams, at least eight or nine are now privately building ships going forward. We gave birth not to just a single ship, but an industry. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Actually, Diamantes gave birth to two new industries, commercial space flight and what he calls prize philanthropy. Diamantes convinces wealthy individuals to back his prizes. PETER DIAMANTES (CHAIRMAN, X PRIZE) They give money to a university or a research, they might get 50 percent on the dollar spent towards their cost. But if they fund the prize, it's magical. They get tenfold the amount of money spent to try and win their prize money. And they only pay upon success. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Diamantes has since launched an automotive X Prize for a super efficient vehicle, an X Prize for genomic sequencing. And tomorrow, he'll enter a whole new arena. He's enlisted Google as a corporate sponsor to begin raising money for 10 new prizes aimed at social problems such as poverty. PETER DIAMANTES (CHAIRMAN, X PRIZE) A prize changes the way we think about problems. It doesn't say can it be done. It says when will it be done. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Diamantes has inspired others. The Methuselah Foundation is offering the M Prize for extending the human lifespan. The US government is offering the Age Prize for breakthroughs in hydrogen fuel. Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group is offering $25 million for scrubbing the air off greenhouse gasses. A new heyday for prizes is here. And there is something undeniably alluring about the idea that anyone can be the next great innovator. The Golem Group proved it. RICHARD MASON (ENGINEER) We heard the epitome of what the intended audience was to sort of garage team that would come out of nowhere. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) Engineer Richard Mason, who's 36, started the group with $50,000 he won on a game show, Jeopardy. His partner, Caltech alum, Jim Radford has never even had a regular job. JIM RADFORD (RICHARD MASON'S BUSINESS PARTNER) I'd rather work on something like this, even if it's a small of chance of return because it's more challenging and more fun. And I think there's something cool about it, like, the cool factor really goes a long way for me. PAT LOEB (REPORTER) In Los Angeles, I'm Pat Loeb for Marketplace.