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
Modon Holding and Nammos Hotels & Resorts Bring Nammos Ras El Hekma to Egypt’s North Coast16.7.2026 14:50:00 CEST | Press release
Developed in partnership with Nammos Hotels & Resorts, the landmark Mediterranean destination will bring together branded residences, a luxury resort, restaurant and beach club, retail village, and signature dining and wellness experiences to Egypt for the first time. Abu Dhabi-based Modon Holding and Nammos Hotels & Resorts have announced Nammos Ras El Hekma – the renowned lifestyle and hospitality brand’s first fully integrated destination in Egypt. Located within the Wadi Yemm precinct, the development will bring Ras El Hekma’s promise of timeless Mediterranean living to life, combining Nammos Residences, Nammos Resort, Nammos Village, and a curated selection of all-day dining and wellness experiences, including the globally renowned Nammos Restaurant & Beach Club. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260716740934/en/ Modon Holding and Nammos Hotels & Resorts bring Nammos Ras El Hekma to Egypt’s North Coast (Pho
Tridiagonal.ai (T.AI) Partners with PETRONAS Carigali’s TriCipta AI with IBM to Advance Engineering Domain-Driven AI Solutions for Upstream Operations16.7.2026 14:30:00 CEST | Press release
Tridiagonal.ai will contribute engineering domain-driven AI solutions, physics-informed models and Decision Intelligence capabilities to support upstream surface equipment optimisation, maintenance reliability and asset integrity decision workflows. Tridiagonal.ai Pvt. Ltd. (T.AI), the dedicated AI arm of Tridiagonal Group, announced its role in the third Joint Development Agreement (JDA) involving PETRONAS Carigali Sdn. Bhd. and IBM Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. to advance PETRONAS Carigali’s flagship TriCipta AI across the Upstream value chain. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260715579933/en/ Signing ceremony for the third TriCipta AI Joint Development Agreement, attended by executives from Tridiagonal.ai (T.AI), PETRONAS Carigali, and IBM Malaysia. TriCipta AI is PETRONAS Carigali’s partnership model that combines deep domain technical expertise with advanced AI technology experts to accelerate the development and dep
Crown Bioscience Joins C-Path's NAMs Developer Coalition to Advance Human-Relevant Models in Drug Development16.7.2026 14:30:00 CEST | Press release
Global CRO brings patient-derived models, organoid platforms and biomarker expertise to collaborative effort advancing regulatory acceptance of New Approach Methodologies Crown Bioscience is a global contract research organization (CRO) specializing in oncology drug discovery and development, today announced it has joined Critical Path Institute's (C-Path) New Approach Methodologies Developer Coalition (NAMs-DC), a collaborative initiative dedicated to advancing the validation, qualification and regulatory adoption of innovative human-relevant research methods. Crown Bioscience joins a growing community of technology developers, pharmaceutical companies, regulatory stakeholders and scientific experts working to accelerate the adoption of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) across drug discovery and development. Through its participation in NAMs-DC, Crown Bioscience will contribute expertise spanning patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, patient-derived tumor organoids, ex vivo patient
Silo Communications expands fiber connectivity in rural Illinois with Adtran16.7.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
News summary: Silo Communications needed a scalable fiber access platform to bring faster, more reliable broadband to underserved communities With Adtran’s technology and intelligent software, Silo Communications is strengthening service delivery as it evolves from wireless to fiber Deployment supports wider state and federal efforts to close the digital divide and create a foundation for long-term rural growth Adtran today announced that Silo Communications, a rural broadband provider based in northern Illinois, is using its fiber access portfolio and software applications to expand high-speed connectivity for underserved homes and businesses. As demand for reliable broadband continues to grow across communities, Silo Communications is building on its wireless heritage with a scalable fiber network designed to support higher speeds, stronger service reliability and future expansion. The deployment supports wider state and federal efforts to extend high-speed connectivity to underserve
Elliptic Launches Next-Generation Continuous Monitoring, Giving Crypto Compliance Teams a Live View of Customer Risk Without the Flood of Alerts16.7.2026 14:00:00 CEST | Press release
The only monitoring solution on the market that detects the full range of risk-changing events, not just label changes, and lets teams configure alerts to only what matters, cutting manual rescreening and alert triage by up to 75% Elliptic, the global leader in digital asset decisioning, today launched the next generation of Continuous Monitoring, a solution that gives crypto compliance teams a continuously accurate view of customer risk rather than a picture frozen at the last screening. Elliptic's Continuous Monitoring is the most comprehensive risk monitoring solution on the market, and the only one to pair the industry's broadest event detection with fully configurable alerting. It is available to compliance teams today. "Monitoring obligations on MLROs are getting more stringent, putting both their companies and, sometimes, themselves at risk. Existing monitoring solutions fail twice over: They leave exposure gaps by only alerting on obvious triggers like label changes while missi
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