LOS ANGELES — August 12, 2026 — Future Vision XPRIZE, a $3.5M+ global film competition for optimistic science fiction storytelling, announced its four judges: astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, novelist Neal Stephenson, VP Technology & Society, Google Mira Lane, and Roddenberry Entertainment CEO Rod Roddenberry. The panel will help choose the grand prize winner, revealed live at Moonshots Live on September 25 in Los Angeles.
Open to any creator worldwide, the competition invites three-minute film trailers or short films depicting compelling, hopeful visions of humanity’s technology-enabled future. The grand prize is $2.5M in production funding to develop the concept into a feature film plus $100K cash. Four runners-up receive $100K each and ten finalists receive $10K. Submissions close August 15.
Moonshots Live event brings together 1,500+ filmmakers, builders, and investors for a day of live competition and conversations with Peter Diamandis, Cathie Wood, Anousheh Ansari, Astro Teller, and more. The event features pitches from finalists of the Build with Gemini XPRIZE, a $2 million global hackathon challenging developers worldwide to use artificial intelligence tools to build scalable solutions to real-world challenges, and culminates in the Future Vision XPRIZE awards ceremony, followed by an evening of networking.
The winning concept will be supported in partnership with industry leaders: Range Media Partners and Google, through their 100 ZEROS initiative, providing a comprehensive development and production infrastructure with Google also delivering creative technology and AI tools, and Republic Film enabling direct fan investment for potential upside sharing in the feature film.
THE JUDGES
Neil deGrasse Tyson — Astrophysicist; Director, Hayden Planetarium; Host, StarTalk
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. Through StarTalk and more than a dozen books, he's spent three decades making the case that a scientifically literate public is a more hopeful one.
Neal Stephenson — Novelist; Author, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, Seveneves
Neal Stephenson is a novelist whose books, including Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Seveneves, have shaped how the tech industry imagines its own future. He coined the term “metaverse” in 1992 and remains one of science fiction's most influential voices for futures people build their way through, not around.
Mira Lane — Vice President, Technology & Society, Google
Mira Lane is Vice President and Founder of the Envisioning Studio at Google, an AI prototyping lab that co-creates with trailblazers to explore emerging technologies and showcase what's possible. Her team builds future-facing experiences to inspire new directions for technology that benefit people and society. Mira previously founded Ethics & Society at Microsoft and is also a practicing artist with work featured in galleries.
Rod Roddenberry — CEO, Roddenberry Entertainment and The Roddenberry Foundation
Rod Roddenberry is CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment and The Roddenberry Foundation, and the son of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. He has spent his career stewarding one of the only mainstream visions of the future where humanity actually makes it, and now funds new stories in that tradition.
Future Vision XPRIZE also thanks its sponsors: Salesforce, ARK Invest, and Xsolla, and its donor, Jed McCaleb.
ABOUT XPRIZE
XPRIZE is the recognized global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity's greatest challenges. For over 30 years, our unique model has democratized crowd-sourced innovation and scientifically scalable solutions that accelerate a more equitable and abundant future. Donate, learn more, and co-architect a world of abundance with us at xprize.org.
ABOUT FUTURE VISION XPRIZE
Future Vision XPRIZE is a $3.5M+ global film competition about a future worth building toward. Presented by XPRIZE and founded by Peter Diamandis, the competition partners with Range Media Partners and Google through their 100 ZEROS initiative, and Republic Film to bring the winning film to life. Submissions close August 15, 2026. Learn more at futurevisionxprize.com.
ABOUT MOONSHOTS LIVE
Moonshots Live is a single-day event on September 25, 2026, at the United Theater and Belasco in Los Angeles, the shared finale for Future Vision XPRIZE and Build with Gemini XPRIZE, bringing more than 1,500 builders, filmmakers, and investors together to announce both competitions' winners.
Attendance for Moonshots Live is by application. Apply to attend at moonshots.com
ABOUT MOONSHOTS
Moonshots is the media and events organization behind Future Vision XPRIZE, Build with Gemini XPRIZE, and Moonshots Live, built to put real resources behind people building and telling the story of a better future.