NYTimes: The Prize Economy and Philanthropy
There’s an interesting introductory article (albeit a little light on substance) in the NYTimes today on these multimillion dollar prizes that seem to be proliferating these days, incentivising philanthropic (usually tech-focused) progress. Recent examples include the Ansari X Prize (space travel, $10m) , Google.org RechargeIT (energy efficient cars, $10m) – which is similar in its theme to the Automotive X Prize, the Archon X Prize (genomic sequencing, $10m) and the Google Lunar X Prize ($30 million). Several more prizes are in the pipeline, too – mainly the X Prize Foundation’s pipeline!
There’s no question that these work. Space travel had, indeed, slowed after the frenzied Space Races of yore. The $10 million offered a strong incentive for teams to deliver commercially viable spaceflight – the money is there, they just had to deliver – and deliver better than rival teams! The Lunar X prize should hopefully keep the momentum going.
But looking at the list above, does anyone think current philanthropic prizes are somewhat limited in size and scope? And for all their benefit to humanity, the public is merely a spectator in all of this, as well-funded teams of experts battle it out for cash offered up by extremely wealthy individuals, foundations and corporations. The public, meanwhile, is only philanthropically active insomuch as it occasionally donates to nonprofits and charities, and pays its taxes.
If:
- humanity is benefiting,
- prizes on the million/multimillion dollar scale are effective,
- the Internet and globalisation is linking crowds far in excess of millions (the "Support the Campaign for Breast Cancer Research" application on Facebook has amassed 2.5 million supporters since its foundation this year
… does this not point to increasing potential for mass philanthropy creating these kinds of prizes?
[disclosure: Stay on the lookout for more on this (CivSpark!)]
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