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
Imagine Dragons to Perform at Abu Dhabi Grand Prix21.5.2026 17:51:00 CEST | Press release
Ethara, organiser of the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, have announced that one of the world’s biggest bands, Imagine Dragons, will headline the Saturday After-Race Concerts at the F1 Season Finale in Abu Dhabi. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260521214839/en/ Imagine Dragons to perform at Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Photo: AETOSWire) The announcement is another landmark moment for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, whose thrilling Yasalam presented by e& fan entertainment offering has become synonymous with the F1 Championship finale in Abu Dhabi and is recognised as one of the most compelling sports and entertainment crossovers globally. The global chart-toppers join Lewis Capaldi and Zara Larsson, who are set to kick off a blockbuster line-up of performances on Yas Island on Thursday, 3 December, with more major international artists to be revealed. With their popular top hits, Ima
Carnegie Mellon University and Cleveland Clinic Develop AI System to Interpret Cardiac MRI Scans with Enhanced Accuracy21.5.2026 14:05:00 CEST | Press release
Trained on more than 13,000 patient studies, novel system significantly outperforms existing models by up to 35% A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic’s Cardiovascular Innovation Research Center, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of interpreting some of the most complex heart scans in medicine, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), without the need for manually labeled training data. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260521762286/en/ A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic’s Cardiovascular Innovation Research Center, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of interpreting some of the most complex heart scans in medicine, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), without the need for manually labeled training data. The novel system, called CMR-CLIP, is d
Otovo Hits 30,000 Customers in Under a Year, Tackling the Growing ‘Solar Service Crisis’21.5.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
A growing wave of unsupported solar systems and rising electricity prices are creating strong demand for Otovo’s energy service platform Otovo ASA (“Otovo”), a leading global energy service provider for residential and commercial customers, today announced it has reached 30,000 customers across the U.S. and Europe. A total of 20,000 customers have enrolled in Otovo Care, the Company’s membership-based home and commercial energy service, which is powered by Otovo’s industry-leading AI platform, Endurance™. “Reaching 30,000 customers in less than year is proof positive that home and business owners value their power systems,” said William J. (John) Berger, CEO of Otovo. “The ‘solar service crisis’ that is leaving millions of orphaned energy systems without support is driving strong interest in our Otovo Care membership program. Every day your home or commercial power system is not working, you are throwing money away. Otovo’s rapid response service platform keeps you up and running, ensu
The Live Moment Effect: Genius Sports and MediaScience Study Finds Specific Moments in Live Sports Can Double Unaided Brand Recall21.5.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
New research shows that brands aligned with emotionally heightened moments in live sports can improve ad effectiveness Genius Sports Limited (NYSE: GENI), a global leader in real-time sports data, today released new biometric research conducted with MediaScience showing that ads delivered immediately after emotionally heightened moments in live sports can double unaided brand recall. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260521475265/en/ The Live Moment Effect report from Genius Sports and MediaScience. The study, The Live Moment Effect, finds that advertising effectiveness is significantly influenced by a viewer’s emotional state immediately before an ad is shown. In controlled biometric testing, ads shown after high-intensity sporting moments, such as near-scoring plays or crucial momentum shifts, delivered approximately double the unaided brand recall of baseline conditions. The Moment Before the Ad Matters The r
Merck Announces First Patient Dosed in Phase 3 Study for Investigational Antibody-Drug Conjugate in Colorectal Cancer21.5.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
Precemtabart tocentecan (Precem-TcT) is investigated as a potential first-in-class anti-CEACAM5 ADC, for the treatment of metastatic CRC (mCRC) CEACAM5 is overexpressed in the majority of colorectal tumors (~90%), and requires no patient selection Significant unmet need remains for clinically meaningful innovation in colorectal cancer (CRC), the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide Not intended for Canada-, UK- or US-based media Merck, a leading science and technology company, today announced that the first patient has been dosed in the Phase 3 PROCEADE®-CRC-03 trial (NCT07549412). The study is evaluating precemtabart tocentecan (Precem‑TcT), a potential first‑in‑class investigational anti‑CEACAM5 antibody‑drug conjugate (ADC), for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). “Leveraging our novel payload‑linker technology, Precem‑TcT is the first CEACAM5‑targeted ADC in clinical studies with an exatecan payload, rationally designed for stability and enhanced cancer
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