TO THE MOON AND BACK: From the unfathomable depths of the seas all the way to the moon, the X PRIZE Foundation has dared teams to push the boundaries of technology. The Los Angeles non-profit's latest challenge hits a little closer to home: bring literacy to 250 million children around the world. The $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE, announced on Sep. 22, "challenges teams from around the world to develop open source scalable software solution that will enable children in developing countries to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic." Here's the press release.
Registrations close on March 31, 2015, after which teams will have 18 months to build their solutions. A panel of judges will narrow the field to five finalist teams, which will each receive $1 million. Their solutions will then be field-tested in a minimum of 100 villages in a developing country over another 18 months. The team "demonstrating the greatest levels of proficiency gains in reading, writing and arithmetic" takes home the $10 million grand prize. (Here are the donors funding the competition.)
Check out the Global Learning XPRIZE site for more specifics about guidelines and the timelines.
