A Breakthrough in XPRIZE Design!

Hey Ben, see above.

Hi Ben,
There were 4 prizes awarded, but yes, these 4 awards were made to 2 people. The wiki awards were made based solely on contributions to the research wiki, and the Competition Design Prizes were made based on the scoring criteria described in the guidelines.
The judging panel decided to award 2 of the advertised 3 Competition Design Prizes based on their scoring. They felt these 2 entries best captured, and addressed all categories of the scoring criteria.

“A group of people have come together to form a $10-30M XPRIZE. The goal: To encourage the world’s best minds to find a cleaner, more practical energy solution. They need your help to *structure this prize.* They’re offering five $10,000 prizes for your best ideas to help *structure this multimillion dollar prize.* Want to help *design the perfect prize?* Visit herox.com/AbundantCleanEnergy, click the orange Accept Challenge button, and follow a few simple steps to add your ideas and for your chance to win one of five $10,000 prizes. Just click on the orange button now.”

The three statements in the middle of that video quote, especially parts between the added asterisks, put a clear emphasis on prize design/structuring as the focus of what would be rewarded in this contest. There was also a QuickStart Wiki Contribution Prize (herox.com/AbundantCleanEnergyQuickStartWikiPrize), posted as a different contest with its own $10K prize pool, listed separately from the 5x$10K prizes in this contest emphasizing prize design/structuring. Wiki collaboration was expected of all participants in the prize design competition, and those contributions were to be considered as part of the evaluation of a person’s entry. However, the “Easy Steps” laid out in the competition overview followed the collaboration step with “Begin a competition design entry by clicking the orange ‘Accept Challenge’ button above.” The collaboration step doesn’t even count as starting an entry, further emphasizing the primacy of prize design in this challenge (even more when contrasted with the Quick Start Prize focused on wiki contributions). Yet, the majority of the purse went for wiki contributions ($20K focused solely on wiki contributions beyond the Quick Start Wiki Prize competition, and 2x$10K competition design prizes where wiki contributions were considered as an important part of the evaluation process). I suppose that explains the leaderboard.

The announcement of winners stated: “We received 28 submissions, and our evaluators selected four [actually only two submissions] to receive Prizes. Altogether, there were so many other insightful solutions and dedicated wiki contributors, and we are confident that many of the innovators in this challenge will do great things in the future in the pursuit of clean energy. Thank you all for helping make this challenge a success.” The high quality of entries reportedly made the selection process difficult for the team and the judging panel. Non-winners also read, “The XPRIZE and ACE teams are absolutely thrilled with the astounding response from you, the innovators, for your work on both competition designs and contributions to the research wiki.” Even the lowest-quality non-winning contributions were seen as so useful that they are still moving on to be used in developing the XPRIZE. Those reports are in opposition to the implied claim that only two submissions reasonably addressed the criteria outlined for this challenge.

Humanity needs to find an abundant source of clean energy. This is widely recognized by leaders of businesses, civic sector organizations, and governments around the world (even if the US government is presently excluded). A $10-30M XPRIZE is peanuts compared to the market reward: Trillions of dollars, already being spent, awaiting a truly abundant source of clean energy. Further, if anyone finds a good way to tap such a source, particularly if it doesn’t introduce new major problems like nuclear waste, the benefits to humanity could be far greater than the $10-30M prize (that huge leverage is the main point of an XPRIZE), let alone a few $10K prizes missing from mid-2017. I really hope this grand challenge gets solved. I will continue to make contributions supporting that eventual goal, and applaud the contributions of others like the winning entries by Joris & Adam (nice job!).

The video accurately noted that “Some of the greatest inventions on Earth came from people vying for a prize.” One element that is *required* in order for prizes to have the intended incentivizing effect is a belief among potential entrants that if the conditions are satisfied, the prize will be paid out. Severe issues with sponsors refusing to do so go all the way back to the Longitude Prize, in which the Board kept moving the goalposts so as to avoid paying out the award to John Harrison. According to Joan Dash’s book, Harrison had accomplished the goal as initially specified but needed to follow that with decades of bitter dispute and obtain the personal help of King George III before being able to claim the reward. This experience may be at least part of the reason such prize structures weren’t more commonplace by 1800. Imagine what the world might otherwise look like today!

Of all contest sponsors on HeroX, XPRIZE seems like it should have the most strongly aligned incentives to make sure that HeroX gains and keeps a solid reputation as a challenge platform with integrity where hosts and sponsors speak honestly and do what they say they will. Unfortunately, careful observers who might consider investing a lot to solve an XPRIZE challenge in the future (or who are leaders in their fields influencing others’ effort investment decisions), can find examples in this and other challenges that have the opposite effects on reputation.

What happened here puts sponsors and solvers on notice that HeroX sponsors (specifically including the Abundant Clean Energy XPRIZE) (1) post incentivized-prize contests promising attractive cash prizes for solutions that satisfy certain requirements, (2) get people to invest time and energy producing and submitting many solutions that meet those requirements, (3) get the benefits and use of those solutions, but then (4) not actually pay out the funds that were nominally supposed to incentivize those participants, (5) even when the stakes are relatively low (compared to the anticipated XPRIZE). Once people learn that this is how things actually work, or come to see the Sponsor’s statements as unreliable, the prize loses its power to incentivize. That’s not what I want to see happen to the ACE team or any XPRIZE. I’d MUCH rather see the prize succeed.

As the solvers who see what’s happening, who also care about this project and have demonstrated efforts to help move it forward, it would be a major disservice to XPRIZE and the ACE team if none of us respectfully called out this critical risk. Consistent with theories around collective action absent communication, group members would expect those with the most to gain or lose to be the ones to say something. If the nonwinners near the top of the leaderboard said nothing, others might assume that they should be even less likely to do so. Todd’s already spouting off about issues specific to him, so I feel some personal responsibility to write this post and respectfully encourage the team to think carefully about the potential consequences of the disconnect between the way this competition was promoted and the way it was completed, especially as the team considers future competitions. Accuracy in public communications is important. Burning credibility to save money at an early stage seems unlikely to produce net benefits long-term, because that credibility is a prize platform host’s most important asset.

Congratulations again to the winners, and best of luck to the team as well as everyone else working towards a future of abundant clean energy.

While I appreciate very much the whole initiative I can agree to some extend that all details was not clearly outlined, or not clear enough.

Personally I can't complain because I read and understood the terms and conditions, and I was not eligible for any prize due to not contributing to the Wiki. I even received at some point an email from HeroX explaining that without meaningful contribution to the Wiki I would not be eligible to compete for the design. (Kudos to HeroX)

I made a design contribution anyway because a Forbidden Energy Xprize has been a dream of mine since I first heard of the Xprize.

In regards to the wiki, i saw early on it was being spammed with irrelevant information. For me it could have been easy to blast page after page and link after link because I happen to know where Forbidden Energy wiki's on the internet are already established. I decided instead to spend the bulk of my time on other Forbidden Energy projects.

If the HeroX team would have asked me, with no cost for my consultation I could have with very little effort coordinated one or two professional content writer with experience in the subject to put together a highly relevant Wiki in a matter of days or week. I'd have to pay the experienced content writer, but the costs would have ended with a fraction of the cost of actually awarding 20 000 USD as prizes, with a more relevant end result.


@Todd
It is obviously not for me to say this or that about the competition, I am not part of HeroX or the people arranging this competition, I have hardly looked at the Wiki or who wrote what. I understand you have provided a lot of value to the community and my hope is that you will continue your good work and not give up due to this setback. I really feel with you but I hope you can overcome this setback and keep your focus on the end-goal. Don't give up Todd!