XPrize offers $ 1.75 million for 2 tons of water

The nonprofit organization XPrize constantly holds contests, the purpose of which is to find a solution to the most important problems of our time. This could be a trip to the moon , providing communication to remote regions, or obtaining large amounts of drinking water in areas where water is a scarce resource. According to XPrize executive director Zenia Tata (Zenia Tata), this problem is extremely important for all people, no matter where they are. Water scarcity is a problem that affects every person on this planet.

In order to solve the problem, XPrize offers $ 1.75 million to anyone who extracts two tons of water from the air per day at a price of 2 US cents per liter or less, taking into account operating and capital costs. At the same time, there are a number of conditions, among which is the need to use alternative energy sources and work only with technologies that already exist now.

The main condition - the use of only "green" energy, must be strictly followed. In the proposed projects, working with traditional energy sources, such as fossil fuels, is completely prohibited. According to the organization, technologies that allow to extract water from the air already exist, but all such methods are extremely energy-intensive.
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If there is a person or company who can offer a real project that meets all the conditions of the competition, then this person or company will receive their $ 1.75 million as a prize. The project's organizers are planning to use the project in countries where residents have no access to fresh drinking water or access to the most important fluid for us is difficult. In such countries, there is not enough water, and this is a problem, since water is used for cooking food, washing, growing plants and animals.

The situation with the lack of drinking water is very serious. According to statistics, about 780 million people from around the world lack fresh water. 3.4 million people a year die due to water-related diseases (chemical or biological pollution). According to some experts, by 2025 more than 1.8 billion people will live in countries and regions with a huge shortage of drinking water.

“Water is becoming an increasingly significant problem in our time. If we do not begin to solve this problem now, by providing people with access to water, over the next ten years, we will get an economic catastrophe and huge problems for health care, ”says Tata.

Documents related to the competition can be downloaded here .



Registration of teams for the Water Abundance XPRIZE competition starts October 24, 2016. Registration is open until March 31, 2017. After that, it will be completed, and all teams that have submitted applications for participation in the competition will proceed to the next stage. It is divided into two rounds:

Round 1. The teams will work on creating a solution for extracting water from the atmosphere, and will also test their work, transferring the results in real time using a special online platform. According to the test results, the jury will select five teams. The main selection criterion is the number of points scored by the teams. Five winning teams move to the second stage of the competition.

Round 2. All five teams will again demonstrate the performance of their equipment. In each case, an XPRIZE representative and an independent auditor will monitor the progress of the work. Following the test, the winning team will be selected, which will receive the money.

Who can take part in the project?

The authors of the project are convinced that any person from any country can find a solution. Scientists, engineers, academics, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who have new ideas are invited to participate in the competition. During the competition, you can invite other people to the team, from temporary consultants to permanent members of the group. All works will be protected by copyright, which will belong to team members.

In order to make sure that everything works, as stated, two supervisory authorities will take part in the project. This is a panel of experts and judges. Representatives of the commission of experts will monitor all stages of the projects of the participating teams.

Judges will be responsible for directly evaluating projects and assigning points to participating teams. Judges will evaluate the technological decisions of individual projects and projects in general.

As mentioned above, XPRIZE will also involve independent experts in the project. This is an ongoing process, experts will be attracted at different stages of project implementation. Independent experts will be present when testing systems for extracting water from air on the spot rather than online.

By the way, for the first time the contest from XPrize will be held outside the United States. The project starts in India. According to organizers, there is a shortage of clean water in many regions, and there are a lot of people in the country. Therefore, the project initiators decided to make India the starting point for the entire competition.

“There are many important problems on Earth. And we hope to help solve many of them, ”says the Water Abundance XPRIZE appeal.

The X-Prize Foundation (X-Prize Foundation) is a fund to support innovations aimed at improving the lives of all mankind. Innovation authors receive a cash reward. Prizes are awarded in four categories: energy and environment (eng. Energy & environment), environmental exploration (eng. Exploration), education and development (eng. Education & global development), biology and medicine (eng. Life sciences). The fund receives funds from private donors and corporations.