One of our favorite things about the holidays here at XPRIZE is that we get a moment to look back over the year and highlight our best moments.
We’ve launched some prizes that we’re incredibly proud of. Take XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, a $5 million dollar, 30-month competition to quickly reskill under-resourced workers for the digital revolution. Or XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, which launched just this month, and is our four-year, $15M competition to incentivize teams to produce chicken breast or fish fillet alternatives – welcoming a more hopeful future for animal welfare and food sustainability.
2020 wasn’t always kind, but we rose to the challenge there too – by creating our own competitions to empower you to fight the biggest issues facing humanity. We invited teams to come up with a next-generation COVID-19 mask, as well as a powerful AI system that can help us all to minimize harm as we reopen economies. XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing, meanwhile, invites teams to devise an affordable mass-scale solution for rapid virus testing.
As proud as we are of this work, seeing how you – our XPRIZE family, collaborators, and loyal followers of The Bridge – respond to all that we’re doing, had to be the greatest gift of all. Each year, we receive hundreds of letters from readers with big ideas (or if not, big opinions!) and they prove that you’re also committed to breakthroughs that will help us pierce new frontiers, secure a healthier planet and unleash human potential.
Below, we picked 10 of our top letters that put a smile on our faces, sparked a bit of hope in the dark, or made us stop and think: ‘hmm, actually, that’s not a bad idea’.
Date: Thursday, May 14, 2020 at 12:43 AM
Subject: Reduction of carbon and all other pollutants from energy sources
Hello XPRIZE,
I have an idea that could remove all carbon plus all other fuel derived pollutants from use of fuels, plus remove toxic wastes from use of solar panels, or infrasound from wind turbines by making them all redundant. Redundant, by replacing these sources: coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, with a renewable source of methane, used as initial fuel source, obtained from oceanic or tundra based methane hydrates. This source is the world's largest source of fossil fuels, fossil fuels you immediately will say is carbon! It will not produce atmospheric carbon if transformed into hydrogen. And it will be renewable as a fossil fuel also if we replace the hydrate source with all our worldly garbage. More on this subject if you are to become interested.
Date: Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 8:48 AM
Subject: Inter planet travel is too far for Radio / video but intergalactic travel is impossible without communication
Hello,
Alpha Centura is our nearest neighbour, and that is 4 light years away, communication is impossible (8 light years for a response) . Even communication with Mars is difficult, 12 to 24 minutes delay depending one the distance between Earth and Mars. I plan to offer the use of quantum entanglement to give instantaneous response to verbal word Conversation, video, and documents. UK tested Quantum entanglement response Time to and from Australia, and more recently the Chinese between Beijing and a satellite in Earth orbit. It was instantaneous. I have devised a method to use this knowledge. I can explain in detail if that is needed, but I kept my response short
Monday, August 17, 2020 at 12:38 PM
Subject: Cool the oceans
Pick the 6 spots in the oceans where the currents meet and have floating platforms that have rods that Freeze the water around them. This would cool the water as it went past. You power this with solar, wind, tidal, wave. etc. I also have a tube idea that uses maglev vacuum and air pressure to push trains to about the limits of human and current materials limits. I also have an idea for a satellite that would open up and hundreds to thousands (depending on size) robots would unfold like oragami and be able to mine, build, repair. They could be autonomous or controlled. They would be the workforce sent ahead to prepare. I also have an idea about an island that would be built in the great garbage patch to filter the ocean and recover recyclables and vaporize the rest to add power to the factory and use Solar wind etc for the rest.
Date: August 18, 2019 at 3:42 PM
Subject: The Global 50/50 Lottery
Dear XPRIZE,
To fight global warming, and global poverty as well, have the United Nations create 'The Global 50/50 Lottery', to raise the massive funds needed to buy clean electricity generating systems, everywhere in the world, to replace the electricity from our coal burning electric power plants, which are emitting the carbon dioxide that is causing global warming. Remember, human greed is like a force of nature that can move mountains. If we can exploit it to fight global warming, we just might beat it!
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2020 at 11:49 AM
Subject: I have a crazy idea and think it's the future
Hey XPRIZE,
Climate rescue! With less than $ 10,000,000, it is possible to evaporate 10,000 tons of seawater in the equatorial areas from 1 km square of plastic installation (from plastic garbage) and from a few square kilometers start creating clouds, which travel to the hot desert and rain at night! Calculation and installation concepts of interest.
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2020 at 12:07 PM
Subject: A "Strange Evidence" Episode!
Dear Sirs,
There is this Discovery Channel cable TV show, called "Strange Evidence", which explores unusual things or phenomena all over the world, witnessed by our now nearly-omnipresent cameras or security systems. These shows include pictures of unexplained creatures and the like.
Anyway, in Season one, Episode ten, they had this story, "Vampire Down Under", about a kind of very mutated, deep sea starfish, that Japanese researchers discovered, on the ocean site of their nuclear power plant disaster. The same area was also greatly polluted, by illegally dumped toxic chemical wastes for years. And, just like in a 'Godzilla' movie, all of that radioactivity and chemicals mutated a starfish into the most terrifying sea monster you've ever seen in your life! Like all starfish, it is a carnivore, and I hope that thing never grows very big!
Date: Sunday, October 4, 2020 at 12:21 PM
Subject: Ernie's crazy idea #1--planetary escape without propellant
I propose that energy be stored as kinetic energy in a massive "base" satellite. Escape energy and momentum, and more, are then transferred to the spacecraft to send it on its journey. While the spacecraft may have some propulsion for maneuvering and so on, I imagine that the primary energy source for travel will be energy removed from the base satellite. For this plan to work, the base satellite will need a way to acquire kinetic energy.
It may be possible to add kinetic energy to the base satellite by means of electromotive force, generated by coupling a current-carrying conductor to the earth's magnetic field. Or, other means not yet defined.
Date: 10/16/2020 9:47 PM
Subject: Two ISS ideas!
Dear XPRIZE, Two International Space Station Ideas
MAGNETIC SHOES. That is, if the ISS is impossible to walk in, because of the zero gravity, why not get some steel aviation tape (used to secure wings to airplanes when they assemble them) and put long strips of that along the 'Floors' of the ISS? That way, you could add tiny magnets to the soles of the shows that these astronauts wear, so that they COULD walk on these steel floor strips. And because the tiny magnets are not very strong, still be able to hop off the steel tape and 'fly' around if they have to.
FREE FLOATING BALLOONS TO PREVENT EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION. That is, although the ISS has a Kevlar 'armor' covering its hull, it is still possible that a super fast piece of space junk or meteorite can pierce its hull, which will create a dangerous explosive decompression of all the air. (Yes, I know that you have e devices that quickly seal off the holed rooms, but it really SUCKS for the astronauts inside them!) So, why not create special balloons, that consist of balloons of different sizes, concentrically contained within each other?
A possible material of these layered balloons could be that fireproof silicone that they use to make oven mitts, which is nearly completely chemically inert, fireproof, and also electrically insulative. Perhaps we could incorporate a Kevlar netting mesh in these silicone layers. But, these units are mostly hollow, with WATER filling up the spaces between them. And, we give them a VELCRO coating on their exterior hull. Until there is an explosive decompression event, these balloons are lightly secured on Velcro strips on the walls of the ISS. But if the ISS hull is holed, the release of the air will violently pull these balloons off their Velcro patches, and quickly INTO the hole. The Velcro covers on them, will help them to slam and attach to each other, to jam up very large holes as a big united plug. And, this concentric structuring with water between the layers, should enable the balloons impacting a hole with sharp, jagged edges, to warp their shapes enough, to fully seal up the jagged hole.
A big plus of these special order balloons is that they could be used as an emergency source of water if it's needed by the astronauts. AND, because the hydrogen atom of water stops radiation particles, the astronauts can arrange them, about their work stations or sleeping bags, to somewhat shield them from the long-term bodily damage of the intense background radiations of outer space. That covers it.
Date: Sunday, October 18, 2020 at 5:50 PM
Subject: Follow-up from 10-4-20
Proof of Concept: Lunar Landing Moon Resort with complete industrial park and county-wide needs
On earth as in Heaven…Built first on earth, then on moon, then…
Built as an earthscraper which is totally renewable, self-sustaining, and self-sufficient. Plus, it has a $3 billion/month economy profit (much of which is used to further the USA Space Force…). Energy is provided via a mega sewage digester that produces multiple needs including algae fuels and byproducts. The 130’ vertical greenhouses turn one square foot into 65-130 square feet. It also provides Garden of Eden smartest vitamin water/drink by the millions of gallons per day, and enough organic food to supply a whole section of a state.
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 at 9:15 PM
Subject: Crazy Idea #7--Feeding the world with artificial ocean upwelling
Dear XPRIZE,
Currently, a mere 5% of the earth's ocean surface produces about 25% of the seafood we eat. Most of the rest of the oceans are barren because of a lack of nutrients in the surface water. The reason is that phytoplankton (cyanobacteria – one cell algae) readily consume the nutrients until none is left. Only the surface water lacks nutrients. The deeper water (about 500 meters down and deeper) where there is no light cannot feed phytoplankton and this water has plenty of available nitrogen and phosphorus in just the right proportions to feed plant life. The 5% of the ocean that produces so much food are areas where deep, rich water is naturally forced to the surface by wind and ocean currents.
I propose to provide abundant protein for the world by making more of the ocean productive through generation of artificial upwelling of deep water. (I mentioned this possibility in the last paragraph of my Crazy idea #4.) In this idea, we explore sources of ocean energy that can be harnessed to lift the cold deep water to the surface. The required pressure head to lift the deep water is about one meter of water. Two energy sources come to mind to lift the water--tides and waves. If a tide range of several meters is available, then the tide can pump deep water into an enclosed lagoon or bay and then it would be managed as a farm growing any kind of sun-driven products. A floating ocean farm is a possibility where waves are used to lift water up vertical pipes. The part I like about all this is it should be a profitable activity and hopefully also enhance ocean health while absorbing CO2.
(Note: Letters have been edited for clarity and to protect senders’ personal details. No crazy ideas were harmed in the making of this round up.)