CA-XPRIZE
23.6.2021 19:32:08 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
XPRIZE , the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, and IBM Watson , IBM’s AI technology for business, today announced the Grand Prize Winner in the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE Challenge . First launched in 2016, the five-year global competition looked to accelerate adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and spark creative, innovative and audacious demonstrations of the technology that are truly scalable to solve societal grand challenges.
Winning first place honors is Zzapp Malaria , in second place is Aifred Health , followed by Marinus Analytics . These finalists were selected out of a pool of 10 semifinalists following presentations of their solutions to a panel of judges during an event held at TED headquarters in New York City last year. A $3 million grand prize, $1 million second place prize, and $500k third place prize will be awarded to the teams. In total, over 150 teams throughout the world joined the competition.
"After five years of hard work and dedication, XPRIZE is thrilled to announce Zzapp Malaria as the grand prize winner of IBM Watson AI XPRIZE,” said Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE. “Zzapp Malaria, Aifred Health and Marinus Analytics are on the forefront of AI advancement, and we are looking forward to seeing firsthand the positive impact they will have on our future.”
"Each of the three finalists of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE showcase what's possible when the power of AI is used to address some of the world’s toughest challenges,” said Daniel Hernandez, General Manager, IBM Data and AI. “It’s inspiring to witness how the AI technologies we developed at IBM help these organizations realize and scale their good tech solutions to drive positive societal change.”
Based out of Tel Aviv, Israel, Zzapp Malaria is committed to malaria elimination. The team’s AI technology is geared towards tackling the main challenges faced by malaria elimination campaigns by creating custom models, built with tools like IBM Watson Studio for Cloud Pak for Data, to predict the number of small water bodies caused by weather, enabling it to optimize the timing for launching larviciding operations.
- Marinus Analytics (based out of Pittsburgh, PA): A woman-owned company founded in 2014 out of Carnegie Mellon Robotics that is driven by a single social mission: To fight human trafficking. Their solution, Traffic Jam, is a suite of analytics tools that saves hours and sometimes days of investigative time to find traffickers and recover victims by quickly turning big data into actionable intelligence. Marinus Analytics has used IBM Watson Discovery and IBM Watson Assistant to extend their Traffic Jam application, aiding investigation into financial fraud and the illicit flow of proceeds to international crime groups.
- Aifred Health (based out of Montreal, Canada): A digital health company focused on clinical decision support in mental health, starting with depression. The team’s solution uses AI to learn from thousands of patients to help tailor treatment, reducing the time it takes for a patient to reach remission. IBM Watson Health is providing Aifred Health with millions of records of observational depression data to improve their ML models.
To determine the winner, XPRIZE AI convened a global jury of representatives from around the world. The jury evaluated each team based on their performance in the following four dimensions: achieved technical impact, evidenced real-world impact, scalability of real-world impact, and ethics and safety.
The winning teams were announced today in partnership with WIRED during the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE’s AI For Good fireside chat featuring Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, and Seth Dobrin, IBM’s Chief AI Officer. The two discussed the challenge and the importance of AI for the future of humanity. As part of their partnership with WIRED, XPRIZE opened up a public vote for the Most Inspiring Team, and Zzapp Malaria was selected as the winner. You can watch the full fireside chat and view additional content via WIRED’s content hub linked here.
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. Active competitions include the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal, $15M XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion, $10 Million XPRIZE Rainforest, $10 Million ANA Avatar XPRIZE and $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling. For more information, visit xprize.org.
About IBM Watson
Watson is IBM’s AI technology for business, helping organizations to better predict and shape future outcomes, automate complex processes, and optimize employees’ time. Watson has evolved from an IBM Research project, to experimentation, to a scaled, open set of products that run anywhere. With more than 40,000 client engagements, Watson is being applied by leading global brands across a variety of industries to transform how people work. To learn more, visit: https://www.ibm.com/watson .
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210623005848/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
GigaDevice Deepens Ecosystem Collaboration with LVGL to Advance GD32’s Global Open-Source GUI Ecosystem12.10.2026 15:00:00 CEST | Press release
GigaDevice, a leading semiconductor company specializing in Flash memory, 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), sensors, and analog products, is deepening its ecosystem collaboration with LVGL. LVGL's Open graphics library is one of the world’s most widely‑adopted open‑source embedded frameworks. Eight GD32 MCU product families have now been officially included in the LVGL ecosystem, providing developers worldwide with more convenient and efficient support for embedded graphics development. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261012320702/en/ Eight GD32 product series supported on LVGL website LVGL is an open-source graphical user interface framework designed for embedded devices, commercially supported by LVGL Ltd., a technology company based in Cambridge, UK. Lightweight, efficient, and cross-platform, it can be widely used in applications such as smart home devices, industrial control systems, consumer electronics, a
W. L. Gore & Associates Launches GORE® Battery Vents – MultiVent Series at the Battery Show12.10.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
The integrated battery vent combines pressure equalization, moisture protection, and resealable thermal-runaway evacuation in a single part, with one opening in the pack wall. Today, W. L. Gore & Associates (Gore) introduced GORE® Battery Vents – MultiVent Series at The Battery Show North America 2026, a new integrated venting architecture that combines all three functions into a single device. Designed for lithium-ion battery packs in electric vehicles and energy storage systems, GORE® MultiVent is an integrated battery vent: one device that equalizes pressure, protects against moisture and evacuates gas during thermal runaway, then reseals. It gives pack designers an alternative to combining dual-stage vents, separate evacuation valves and desiccants. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261012625188/en/ GORE® MultiVent GORE MultiVent builds on technology Gore acquired from Vernay Laboratories in 2026 and combine
Echodyne and ACS Sign Strategic Collaboration Agreement to Advance Counter-UAS Capabilities Worldwide12.10.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
Successful integration of EchoShield® radar with ACS’s Bullfrog™ autonomousweapon station delivers precise tracking and affordable kinetic defeat across land and maritime missions. Echodyne, the radar platform company, and ACS, a precision robotics company for defense, today announced the signing of a Strategic Collaboration Agreement to accelerate the development, demonstration, and deployment of integrated counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) solutions. The agreement establishes collaboration across Echodyne’s high-performance commercial counter-UAS radar hardware and software roadmaps and ACS’s Bullfrog robotic weapon station capabilities, and follows the recent announcement of each company’s award from Joint Interagency Task Force 401 for Domestic Shield, the JIATF-401 C-UAS Marketplace, and other critical counter-drone requirements. Bullfrog combines computer vision, autonomous control, and precision robotics with existing weapon systems to detect, track, identify, and engage
Doctors, Public Health Experts and Dental Leaders Call for Oral Health to Become Part of Everyday Health Care12.10.2026 13:34:00 CEST | Press release
New international consensus connects healthier teeth and gums with overall health and identifies practical daily steps, including effective plaque removal, that can help prevent oral disease Doctors, public-health experts and dental leaders are calling for oral health to be treated as part of overall health. Their message is clear: healthier teeth and gums matter beyond the mouth, and effective daily prevention should become a routine part of health care. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261015403348/en/ Oral health is part of overall health. Leading health experts are calling for oral health to become part of everyday health care, with prevention starting at home through healthier habits and daily care of teeth and gums. The new international consensus goes well beyond dentistry. It brought together experts in periodontology, cardiology, diabetes care, family medicine, public health, social care and health edu
Pacific Defense Launches NEXUS, a Converged C2 and Electromagnetic Warfare Mission System12.10.2026 13:30:00 CEST | Press release
COTS, open-architecture system brings communications, networking, edge computing, sensing and electronic effects onto a common SOSA™ and CMOSS-aligned architecture Pacific Defense, a leading provider of open-architecture C5ISR and electronic warfare mission systems, today announced the launch of NEXUS, a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) mission system that converges command and control, communications, networking, edge computing, and electronic warfare on a common, adaptable architecture. Built on a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) aligned to SOSA™, CMOSS and OpenVPX™, NEXUS enables mission-specific configurations across mobile, fixed-site, maritime, and airborne operations. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261012010656/en/ NEXUS converges EW and C5ISR in one, open-architecture system for missions across ground, maritime, and airborne operations. NEXUS brings capabilities traditionally integrated through sep
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