The prize: $10m. To win, just solve these science problems
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They are an elite club of billionaires, movie producers, dotcom wiz kids and the occasional astronaut and between them they hope to change the face of scientific research.
With money and influence, the 20-strong team - among them the producer of the Blues Brothers and Naked Gun movies, the co-founder of Google, a former White House aide and the Vietnam veteran-turned-billionaire genetics entrepreneur, Craig Venter, are to launch a series of multimillion dollar prizes to accelerate scientific breakthroughs that otherwise might be decades away.
Together, they make up the X-Prize Foundation, an organisation set up by Peter Diamandis of Space Adventures, the company that arranged for Dennis Tito to fly to the International Space Station in 2001 and so become the world's first space tourist. The foundation (motto: 'Creating radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity'), plans to launch three prizes of at least $10m (£5.75m) this year to crack some of the toughest problems facing genetics, nanotechnology and the car industry. 'Our goal is to build ourselves into a world-class prize institute and focus on using those prizes to attack some of the grand challenges of our time,' Dr Diamandis said. 'By setting up prizes with a big enough purse, you can reach across space and time
They are an elite club of billionaires, movie producers, dotcom wiz kids and the occasional astronaut and between them they hope to change the face of scientific research.
With money and influence, the 20-strong team - among them the producer of the Blues Brothers and Naked Gun movies, the co-founder of Google, a former White House aide and the Vietnam veteran-turned-billionaire genetics entrepreneur, Craig Venter, are to launch a series of multimillion dollar prizes to accelerate scientific breakthroughs that otherwise might be decades away.
Together, they make up the X-Prize Foundation, an organisation set up by Peter Diamandis of Space Adventures, the company that arranged for Dennis Tito to fly to the International Space Station in 2001 and so become the world's first space tourist. The foundation (motto: 'Creating radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity'), plans to launch three prizes of at least $10m (£5.75m) this year to crack some of the toughest problems facing genetics, nanotechnology and the car industry. 'Our goal is to build ourselves into a world-class prize institute and focus on using those prizes to attack some of the grand challenges of our time,' Dr Diamandis said. 'By setting up prizes with a big enough purse, you can reach across space and time
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