CA-XPRIZE
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
Hemato-Oncology Trials: AOP Health Presents New Results at Top Congress ASH7.12.2025 17:00:00 CET | Press release
AOP Health continues to advance its clinical research program in myeloproliferative neoplasms, a special group of rare blood cancers. The company, specialized in rare diseases, presented the results of two scientific investigations at the 67th American Society of Hematology Association (ASH) Annual Meeting 2025 held in Orlando, FL, USA. The results provide new insights in treatment strategies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251207587915/en/ Dr. Martin Steinhart, CEO AOP Health; Photo credit: AOP Health/Studio Koekart ROP-ET and BESREMI PASS One of the clinical studies, ROP-ET, examined the use of ropeginterferon alfa-2b in people with essential thrombocythemia (ET), a disease in which the body produces too many platelets. The trial, a prospective, multicenter, single-arm phase III study, investigated the safety and efficacy of ropeginterferon alfa-2b in ET patients unable to receive available cytoreductive th
CoMotion GLOBAL 2025 Launches in Riyadh: Global Mobility Leaders Unite in Saudi Capital to Chart Urban Future7.12.2025 13:00:00 CET | Press release
Summit debuts Mayors in Motion initiative and CoMotion Urban Visionary Distinction as Riyadh showcases its rise as global mobility testbed Riyadh is rapidly becoming one of the world's most ambitious urban mobility laboratories, where next-generation technologies move from blueprint to real-world deployment on city streets at unprecedented scale. CoMotion GLOBAL 2025, the world's most influential gathering of urban mobility leaders, opens today in Riyadh for a three-day summit bringing together innovators from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. Running December 7-9, the event will explore how electrification, autonomy, AI-enabled transport, and giga-project urbanism are reshaping cities worldwide. The summit will spotlight everything from high-performance EVs and breakthrough autonomous fleets to emerging-market transport solutions and new mobility models, demonstrating how the Kingdom is opening new pathways for global mobility leadership. Strategic Partnerships
Deciphera Announces Oral Presentation of Positive Topline Results from Phase 2a Study of Sapablursen in Polycythemia Vera at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting6.12.2025 15:30:00 CET | Press release
Results from Phase 2a IMPRSSION study demonstrate sapablursen significantly reduced phlebotomy rate, controlled hematocrit and increased serum hepcidin Sapablursen was generally safe and well tolerated Results support further development of sapablursen in a Phase 3 study Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, a member of Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Osaka, Japan; President and COO: Toichi Takino; “Ono”), today announced the oral presentation of positive results from the Phase 2a IMPRSSION study of sapablursen in patients with polycythemia vera (PV) at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, taking place December 6-9, 2025, in Orlando, FL. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251206361611/en/ The results were presented by Ionis Pharmaceuticals, who discovered and developed sapablursen and conducted the IMPRSSION study. In March 2025, Ionis and Ono entered into a license agreement in which On
Protagonist and Takeda Present Longer-Term Data at ASH 2025 Showing Rusfertide Delivers Durable Response and Hematocrit Control in Polycythemia Vera6.12.2025 15:30:00 CET | Press release
52-Week Results from the Phase 3 VERIFY Study of Rusfertide Demonstrated Sustained Hematocrit Control and Response, Defined by Absence of Phlebotomy Eligibility, with No New Safety SignalsThese Data Build on Positive 32-Week Primary Analysis from VERIFY, Which Met its Primary Efficacy Endpoint and All Four Key Secondary EndpointsPatients Crossing Over from Placebo to Rusfertide at 32 Weeks Achieved a Similar Response Rate to Those Initially Randomized to Rusfertide, with 77.9% Achieving Absence of Phlebotomy Eligibility Between Weeks 40-52Four-Year Results from the Combined REVIVE and Long-Term Extension THRIVE Study Demonstrated a 13-Fold Reduction in Annual Rate of Phlebotomies from Baseline Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. (“Protagonist”) (NASDAQ:PTGX) and Takeda (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) announce that new 52-week results from the pivotal Phase 3 VERIFY study evaluating rusfertide in patients with polycythemia vera (PV) will be presented in an oral presentation at the 67th American Society
Vertex Presents New Data on CASGEVY®, Including First-Ever Data in Children Ages 5-11 Years, at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Announces Plan for Global Regulatory Submissions6.12.2025 13:01:00 CET | Press release
- Data from pivotal studies of CASGEVY in children ages 5-11 years with severe sickle cell disease or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia demonstrates the transformative potential of the therapy in younger patients -- Efficacy and safety data in children 5-11 years are consistent with the durable and positive benefit/risk profile established from clinical studies in patients 12 years of age and older -- Vertex expects to initiate global regulatory submissions for CASGEVY in children 5-11 years in 1H 2026 - Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced data from multiple studies demonstrating the clinical benefits of CASGEVY® (exagamglogene autotemcel) in people ages 5 years and older living with severe sickle cell disease (SCD) or transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia (TDT). The results, including the first presentation of clinical data from pivotal studies in children ages 5-11 years, and longer-term data from the pivotal studies of people with severe SCD and
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