Announced today, the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE competition is designed to encourage the development of breakthrough technologies for cleaning up our oceans.
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill appears to be contained, but the devastating impact caused by this oil spill will last for years. It is also inevitable that future oil spills will occur, so we need to be prepared to safeguard our oceans and shores. The X PRIZE Foundation is accepting registrations for the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE to find the technical and environmentally safe solutions for capturing oil at the spill site, thus limiting spills’ impacts and protecting our oceans, shores, and marshes, as well as the health and well-being of the people and wildlife that live and thrive in these communities.
Wendy Schmidt said that, “With nearly 4,000 active drilling platforms in the Gulf alone, and more than 10,000 oil platforms across the globe and millions of barrels of oil being transported every day by tankers, it’s not a question of ‘if’ there is another spill but ‘when.’”
If you don’t know what the X PRIZE Foundation is, here’s a short intro.
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit organization whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity thereby inspiring the formation of new industries, jobs and the revitalization of markets that are currently stuck. Today, it is widely recognized as the leader in fostering innovation through competition.
The competition begins on August 1, 2010 and culminates in the summer of 2011. To register and submit your idea, head to the contest page here.
