List of challenge awards

Presentation of $10 million check for Ansari X Prize

This list of challenge awards is an index to articles about notable challenge awards, or inducement prize contests. A cash prize is given for the accomplishment of a feat, usually of engineering.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Offered before 1900

Country Award Sponsor First
Offered		 Description
France Alkali prize Louis XVI of France, French Academy of Sciences 1783 For a method to produce alkali from sea salt (sodium chloride). Achieved by Nicolas Leblanc in 1791.
France Food preservation prize Napoleon 1800 For a new way to preserve food. Won by Nicolas Appert in 1910.
United Kingdom Longitude rewards Parliament of United Kingdom 1714 Established by the Longitude Act. For anyone who could find a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude
France Montyon Prize French Academy of Sciences, Académie française 1820 A series of prizes awarded annually for making an industrial process less unhealthy, improving a mechanical process, book which rendered the greatest service to humanity, "prix de vertu" for the most courageous act by a poor Frenchman

Offered in 20th century

Country Award Sponsor First
Offered		 Description
United States Hearst Transcontinental Prize William Randolph Hearst 1910 To the first aviator to fly coast to coast across the United States, in either direction, in fewer than 30 days from start to finish. Expired in November 1911 without a winner.
United Kingdom Daily Mail aviation prizes Daily Mail newspaper 1906 Between 1906 and 1930 for various different achievements in aviation
France Deutsch prize Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe 1900 For first machine capable of flying a round trip from the Parc Saint Cloud to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and back in less than thirty minutes.[1] Won in 1901.[2]
United States Dole Air Race James Dole 1927 Air race across the Pacific Ocean from northern California to the Territory of Hawaii. Two of the eight planes successfully landed in Hawaii.
Hungary Erdős problems Paul Erdős 20th century Payments for solutions to unresolved mathematical problems
United States Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology Foresight Institute 1993 For significant advances in nanotechnology
France Grand Prix d'Aviation Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe 1904 For the first person to fly a circular 1-kilometer course in a heavier-than-air craft.[3] Won in 1908[4][5]
United States Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition United States Army CCDC Ground Vehicle Systems Center etc. 1993 Undergraduate and graduate student teams design and build an autonomous ground vehicle capable of completing several difficult challenges.
United States Knuth reward check Donald Knuth 1984 For finding technical, typographical, or historical errors, or making substantial suggestions for Knuth's publications.
United Kingdom Kremer prize Royal Aeronautical Society 1959 Series of awards for human-powered flight. First prize won in 1977 by the MacCready Gossamer Condor.
United States Orteig Prize Raymond Orteig 1919 For the first Allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa. Won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.
Germany Wolfskehl Prize Paul Wolfskehl 1906 For proving Fermat's Last Theorem. Won by Andrew Wiles in 1997

Offered in 21st century

Country Award Sponsor First
Offered		 Description
Africa (Various) Afri-Plastics Challenge Government of Canada, via Challenge Works 2023 For the reduction of marine plastics in Sub-Saharan African countries by developing and scaling innovative solutions to plastic mismanagement.
United States America's Space Prize Robert Bigelow 2004 For first US-based team to design and build a reusable crewed capsule capable of flying five astronauts to a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space module. Expired in 2010 without a winner.
United States Ansari X Prize Anousheh Ansari, Amir Ansari via X Prize Foundation 1996 For first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. Won in 2004.
United States Archon X Prize Stewart Blusson via X Prize Foundation 2006 For the first team to rapidly, accurately and economically sequence 100 whole human genomes to an unprecedented level of accuracy. Cancelled in 2013.
United States Automotive X Prize Progressive Corporation via X Prize Foundation 2007 For super-efficient low-emission vehicles in three categories. Awarded in 2010
United States Brain Preservation Technology Prize Brain Preservation Foundation 2010 For long-term storage of a brain's connectome. Small mammal prize won in 2016 and large mammal prize in 2018
United Kingdom Brexit Prize[6] Institute of Economic Affairs 2013 For best plan for a UK exit from the European Union. Awarded in 2014.
United States Buckminster Fuller Challenge Buckminster Fuller Institute 2007 Annual international design competition for the most comprehensive solution to a pressing global problem.
United States Centennial Challenges NASA 2003 For various non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.
United States Cornell Cup USA Cornell University 2011 Annual embedded design competition to empower student teams to become the inventors of the newest innovative applications of embedded technology
United States DARPA Grand Challenge DARPA 2004 Series of prizes for autonomous vehicles.
United States DARPA Network Challenge DARPA 2009 Contest to use social networking to locate ten red balloons placed around the United States. Won in less than 9 hours.
United States DARPA Shredder Challenge 2011 DARPA 2011 Contest to reconstruct documents shredded by a variety of paper shredding techniques.
United States DARPA Spectrum Challenge DARPA 2013 Contest for a radio protocol that can best use a given communication channel in the presence of other dynamic users and interfering signals.
United Kingdom Earthshot Prize The Royal Foundation 2021 Until 2030. Contests for sustainable development in environmental work annually.
United States Elevator:2010 Spaceward Foundation, NASA Centennial Challenges 2005 Until 2010. Contests for space elevator and related technologies. Annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems
International Global Security Challenge InnoCentive 2006 For the most promising security technology startups in the world.
United States Google Lunar X Prize Google via X Prize Foundation 2007 For landing a robot on the surface of the Moon, traveling 500 meters over the lunar surface, and sending images and data back to the Earth. Expired in 2018 with no winner.
Australia Hutter Prize Marcus Hutter 2006 For each 1% data compression improvement on a specific 100 MB English text file.
United States Hyperloop pod competition SpaceX 2015 To design—and for some, build—a subscale prototype transport vehicle to demonstrate technical feasibility of various aspects of the Hyperloop concept.
United States L Prize United States Department of Energy 2008 For the replacement of two types of light bulb, an A19 60-watt incandescent light bulb and a PAR 38 halogen incandescent bulb
United Kingdom Longitude Prize Nesta 2012 For a team of researchers that develops an affordable, accurate, and fast point-of-care test for bacterial infection that is easy to use anywhere in the world
United States Lunar Lander Challenge NASA Centennial Challenges 2006 Series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achieved the total delta-v needed for a vehicle to move between the surface of the Moon and its orbit.
United States Methuselah Mouse Prize Methuselah Foundation 2003 To the research team that broke the world record for the oldest-ever mouse; and to the team that developed the most successful late-onset rejuvenation strategy
United States Millennium Prize Problems Clay Mathematics Institute 2000 For solving any of: P versus NP problem, Hodge conjecture, Poincaré conjecture (solved), Riemann hypothesis, Yang–Mills existence and mass gap, Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness, Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
United Kingdom N-Prize Paul H. Dear 2008 To launch a satellite weighing between 9.99 and 19.99 grammes into Earth orbit, and to track it for a minimum of nine orbits. The launch budget must be under £999.99 including the launch vehicle, all of the required non-reusable launch equipment hardware, and propellant
United States Netflix Prize Netflix 2006 For the best collaborative filtering algorithm to predict user ratings for films, based on previous ratings without any other information about the users or films. Won in 2009.
France Peugeot Concours Design Peugeot 2000 To design a Peugeot car for the year 2020
United States Prize4Life Avi Kremer, ALS Association 2007 For the discovery of treatments and a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
United States Space Poop Challenge NASA 2016 New designs for space toilet systems for use in space suits
United States Tricorder X Prize Qualcomm via X Prize Foundation 2011 For an automatic non-invasive health diagnostics system in a single portable package that weighs no more than 5 pounds (2.3 kg), able to autonomously diagnose 13 medical conditions
Australia UAV Outback Challenge Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation 2007 For the development of unmanned aerial vehicles.
United Kingdom Virgin Earth Challenge Richard Branson 2007 For a commercially viable design which results in the permanent removal of greenhouse gases from the Earth's atmosphere to contribute materially to global warming avoidance
United States Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge The Schmidt Family Foundation via X Prize Foundation 2010 For efficient capturing of crude oil from ocean water
United States X Prize Cup State of New Mexico via X Prize Foundation 2005 For e.g. rocket-powered bicycles, rocket jet packs, lunar lander and space elevator

See also

References

  1. ^ Airship Deutsch Prize - 1901, The Airship Z-Prize official website Archived 2009-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ "M. Santos Dumont's Balloon". News. The Times. No. 36591. London. 21 October 1901. col A, p. 4.
  3. ^ ""Prize Patrol", from Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company, a virtual museum of pioneer aviation". Archived from the original on 2009-03-12. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
  4. ^ HENRI FARMAN 1874-1958 at Early Aviators.com
  5. ^ Henri Farman at Centennial of Flight Archived 2009-01-18 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "'Brexit': IEA offers prize for UK exit plan from EU". British Broadcasting Corporation. 15 July 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2014.