CA-XPRIZE
3.10.2020 03:10:11 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
XPRIZE today announced that the million dollar Next-Gen Mask Challenge received record-breaking team entry numbers in their newest initiative that called upon young innovators from around the world ages 15 to 24 to reimagine protective face masks. By limiting participation to youth participants, XPRIZE aimed to galvanize the next generation of innovators, and the overwhelming response demonstrated the eagerness of Gen-Z creators to make an impact on the world.
Within 60 days, the XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge received 992 interested participants, making it the largest, most prolific call-to-action in XPRIZE Foundation history. Potential teams originated from 76 countries, proof of the global desire to overcome many of the common barriers associated with traditional protective masks.
“We understand that masks can be ill-fitting, uncomfortable, unfashionable, and that the most effective masks are often unavailable or expensive for everyday people. We need an alternative, that’s why XPRIZE is turning to the world’s young innovators to help reinvent the face mask and create an accessible alternative that will help protect against the spread of COVID-19,” said Peter H. Diamandis, XPRIZE founder and executive chairman. “We’re going to take the top 25 designs and find out if they’re manufacturable. Once we determine their manufacturability, we’re going to take the top 10 of those and go out to influencers to gauge acceptance.”
XPRIZE, a nonprofit organization that uses global competitions to crowdsource solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges, recognized that currently one-third of the US population doesn’t regularly wear a mask, despite evidence showing that when used properly they can significantly reduce transmission of viruses. The $1M XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge contest, sponsored by Marc Benioff and Jim Cramer, will award the grand prize to young innovators whose mask design best combines ingenuity, effectiveness, X-factor of style, and ability to overcome common barriers to use as measured by a pre-Challenge poll taken by over 3,000 participants.
“There is a gigantic amount of evidence that masks can stop the spread,” said Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money on CNBC. “I’m so proud to sponsor the XPRIZE Next-Gen Mask Challenge with Marc Benioff, it's amazing how resourceful people are when you ask them to design a mask that those who object to most masks might even wear.”
“If everyone in the United States wore a mask for 3 weeks — just 3 weeks — we would not have anymore coronavirus, because there would be no more spread, but people do not want to wear masks,” said sponsor Marc Benioff.
XPRIZE’s Next-Gen Mask Challenge will culminate in a final judging event, with in-lab testing this October supported by partners 3M and Honeywell and winners will be announced later this year. Additional details and the list of teams moving forward can be found here.
ABOUT XPRIZE
XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. Active competitions include the $20 Million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, the $10 Million Rainforest XPRIZE, the $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE, the $5 Million IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling, XPRIZE NextGen Mask Challenge and $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid COVID Testing. For more information, visit xprize.org.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201002005517/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
IKI Advances Promotional Forecast Accuracy by More Than 10 Points With SymphonyAI17.9.2026 07:03:00 CEST | Press release
Lithuania's second-largest grocer brings AI-driven promotional planning to its network of 250 stores, with early results already showing double-digit gains in forecast accuracy SymphonyAI, a global leader in Vertical AI, today announced that IKI, one of Lithuania's largest grocery retailers, is implementing SymphonyAI's Promotional Evaluation and Promotional Planning solutions across its network of 250 stores, as part of its strategy to strengthen data-driven promotional planning. IKI continuously evaluates opportunities to strengthen its category management and promotional planning capabilities. As promotional programs become increasingly sophisticated, the retailer has invested in advanced analytics and AI-driven forecasting to support data-driven decision making across its business. In its initial work with SymphonyAI across select categories, IKI has seen promotional forecast accuracy improve by more than 10 percentage points, along with a reduction in stock-outs during promotional
Lattice Advances FPGA Design with New Leadership AI-Driven Development Tool, Lattice Prompt17.9.2026 04:00:00 CEST | Press release
Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable and platform firmware leader, today introduced a new leadership AI-powered FPGA development tool for small and mid-range FPGAs that redefines how FPGA developers work across the full design flow. Lattice Prompt pairs with AI agentic tools developers already use, combining them with Lattice design tools, knowledge base, and documentation to turn natural language inputs into validated responses, dramatically accelerating FPGA development while optimizing design performance and capability. "Accelerating time-to-market demands and rising design complexity are putting mounting pressure on FPGA developers to do more with every design cycle," said Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lattice Semiconductor. "Lattice Prompt gives developers AI-assisted access to the full design flow, grounded in Lattice's validated knowledge, so they can focus on what matters most: building differentiated systems." Lattice Prompt:
Lattice Expands Secure Control FPGA Leadership with New Lattice Mach-N2 Family17.9.2026 04:00:00 CEST | Press release
Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable and platform firmware leader, today announced Lattice Mach™-N2 FPGA family, extending its long-running secure control FPGA leadership with new devices purpose-built for system control and security in modern infrastructure. Built on the Lattice Nexus™ 2 small FPGA platform, Mach-N2 combines integrated flash, a hardware Root of Trust, and CNSA 2.0-compliant post-quantum cryptography (PQC) with crypto agility for trusted, always-on system control and security across next-generation systems. "The demands on system control and security are accelerating as post-quantum mandates take hold, and customers building long-lifecycle infrastructure seek solutions that will help them design with today and tomorrow’s security needs in mind," said Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lattice Semiconductor. "Mach-N2 represents a significant step forward in logic density and bandwidth while adding the most complete post-qua
TOURISE Unveils 2027 Summit Under the Theme “Alliances That Move the World”16.9.2026 22:53:00 CEST | Press release
Second global tourism summit to convene renowned leaders in Riyadh, March 23-25, 2027 First confirmed speakers announced, including leaders from Booking Holdings, Marriott, Hilton, Intrepid Travel and S4 Capital Theme calls for new alliances across tourism, technology, investment and government to shape the sector’s next 50 years Under the patronage of His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of Tourism and Chairman of TOURISE, today announced the TOURISE 2027 Summit, taking place in Riyadh from March 23-25, 2027. Building on the inaugural TOURISE Summit in November 2025 and a year of collaboration since, the 2027 edition will run under the theme “Alliances That Move the World.” Over three days, leaders will focus on the partnerships, investments and actions needed to advance the global tourism agenda over the next 50 years. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here
Brightfin Names Dan McNamara Chief Customer Officer16.9.2026 19:13:00 CEST | Press release
As Brightfin expands its platform and rides growing enterprise demand for IT spend control, the company taps Dan McNamara with a track record of scaling teams through rapid growth Brightfin, the leading platform for total spend intelligence in enterprise IT, today announced that Dan McNamara has joined the company as Chief Customer Officer (CCO). The appointment comes as Brightfin extends its platform into a broader vision of financial truth and operational clarity across the entire enterprise technology stack, and as more IT and finance leaders turn to Brightfin to make sense of fast-growing, fragmented spend across cloud, mobile, and emerging AI tooling. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260916064892/en/ Dan McNamara, CCO of Brightfin McNamara has built his career on meeting increasingly complex customer expectations. Twice, he has joined a customer organization in the middle of rapid growth and left it with a
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom