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
The Estée Lauder Companies Fully Establishes Its “One ELC” Operating Model and Reaches Milestone in Its Profit Recovery and Growth Plan1.4.2026 23:00:00 CEST | Press release
WPP Appointed First-Ever Global Media Partner, Unifying Media Execution Worldwide“One ELC” Operating Model Is Transforming How the Company Operates at Scale The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) today announced WPP as its first-ever global media partner, marking a significant advancement of its One ELC operating model, a scalable system designed to operate faster, execute with greater discipline, and drive growth. In fully establishing One ELC, the Company also reached a significant milestone in its Profit Recovery and Growth Plan’s (PRGP) Restructuring Program — a key action plan priority of Beauty Reimagined. Stéphane de La Faverie, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Estée Lauder Companies, said, “With the appointment of WPP as our first-ever global media partner, our One ELC operating model is now fully established. This more unified and scalable system will enable us to be faster, more agile and efficient, and support unlocking additional growth. Together with our exec
Visual Bank Expands “Qlean Dataset” to Support Large-Scale Japanese Speech Foundation Models1.4.2026 21:45:00 CEST | Press release
Delivering 100,000+ hours of rights-cleared Japanese audio, including regional dialects and culturally contextualized speech essential for commercial AI development. Visual Bank Inc. (CEO: Saneyuki Nagai), through its subsidiary amanaimages Inc., one of the largest digital asset providers for the marketing and advertising industry in Japan with over 40 years of history, today announced the expansion of its Qlean Dataset, a premium AI training data solution designed for developers building high-performance Japanese speech foundation models. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260401752248/en/ Visual Bank Group, leveraging over 40 years of expertise through amanaimages Inc., expands Qlean Dataset, delivering high quality, rights cleared Japanese language corpora, including 100,000+ hours of commercially usable audio. A new development within the Qlean Dataset division, which focuses on providing datasets for institu
Manna Air Delivery Raises $50Million Series B as It Announces Plans to Expand in the United States1.4.2026 18:00:00 CEST | Press release
ARK Invest, backer of OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and SpaceX, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Schooner Capital back new round bringing total funding to $110M Plans to scale to 40 bases in the United States, supported by seven years of operational orchestration experience, and recently expanded its global partnerships with Uber, joining Deliveroo, Just Eat and DoorDash in delivering everyday items by air. Manna Air Delivery, a global leader in consumer drone delivery, has announced a $50 million funding round to scale its proven operations further in the United States and Europe. The round brings Manna’s total funding to $110million. Manna now operates one of the most active consumer drone delivery networks in the world, with more than 250,000 regulated commercial UAV flights completed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260310714366/en/ Manna Air Delivery raises $50m Series B Investors in the round include
Bureau Veritas Launches an Independent AI Assessment Offering for European Enterprises, Developed in Partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS)1.4.2026 17:45:00 CEST | Press release
Bureau Veritas, a global leader in Testing, Inspection, and Certification services (TIC), announces the launch of an AI systems audit to help European enterprises assess and demonstrate their compliance with the European Union's "AI Act" regulatory requirements. This offering combines on-site audits, document analysis, and direct testing to deliver an independent maturity report. Since the EU's AI regulation came into force in 2024, companies have faced major implementation challenges. According to a recent report*, 68% of them struggle to interpret the provisions of the text, while 60% have yet to put in place the governance needed to comply. Non-compliance can cost them up to 7% of annual revenue. Bureau Veritas has developed this new audit offering to help companies identify their compliance gaps and remedy them. Bureau Veritas's new audit offering comprises a pre-audit, document review, on-site audit, and direct testing, resulting in an independent report on the client's AI maturit
Greenland Resources Signs Eight Year Off-take Agreement With SSAB to Supply High Quality Molybdenum1.4.2026 16:29:00 CEST | Press release
Greenland Resources Inc. (TSX:MOLY, FSE:M0LY) (“Greenland Resources” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the Company has signed a binding off-take agreement with SSAB, a Nordic and US-based steel producer headquartered in Sweden. The company is a leading producer on the global market for advanced high-strength steels providing solutions to the defence, automotive, infrastructure and energy industries. A stock exchange press release from SSAB can be found on their website at www.ssab.com This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260401270749/en/ The off-take agreement provides an established price floor and price ceiling and will allow SSAB to secure high quality low carbon emission ferromolybdenum extracted in Greenland and refined in Belgium. SSAB will be able to ensure a stable and responsibly sourced long term secured primary molybdenum supply with high sustainability standards and low scope 1&2 emissions from 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