Prize Overview
The Water Abundance XPRIZE is a $1.75 million competition, challenging teams to alleviate the global water crisis with energy-efficient technologies that harvest fresh water from thin air. Teams will revolutionize access to fresh water by creating a device that extracts a minimum of 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere using 100% renewable energy, at a cost of no more than 2 cents per liter.
The Water Abundance XPRIZE will create decentralized access to water, giving people the power to access fresh water, whenever and wherever they need it.
The need for this Prize
Water is a key element of life on our planet. More than 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, yet over 780 million people in 43 countries are facing water scarcity due to lack of availability, uneven distribution and access, and contamination. By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will be living in areas with absolute water scarcity, with 2/3 of the global population living under water stressed conditions.
While opportunities exist to augment currently available fresh water resources, including desalination and wastewater treatment, these approaches have been environmentally destructive and expensive thus far.
With over 3 quadrillion gallons of water in the atmosphere, or enough to meet the needs of every person on the planet for a year, atmospheric extraction could revolutionize access to fresh water, generating fresh water where it is currently unavailable or inaccessible.
What You Can Do To Cause A Breakthrough
Design a revolutionary solution that can extract large amounts of fresh water from the atmosphere using no fossil fuel-based energy.
Register your team now by clicking "SUBMIT MY IDEA"
How to participate in the Challenge?
To participate in Water Abundance XPRIZE, please visit http://water.xprize.org
Prize Guidelines
To view Prize Guidelines, please visit http://water.xprize.org/about/guidelines
Challenge Guidelines are subject to change. Registered competitors will receive a notification when changes are made, however, we highly encourage you to visit the XPRIZE challenge site often to review updates.
THE FULL COMPETITION GUIDELINES CAN BE VIEWED HERE.
THE WATER ABUNDANCE XPRIZE (‘WATER ABUNDANCE XPRIZE’ or ‘WAXP’ or ‘Prize’) IS GOVERNED BY THESE COMPETITION GUIDELINES. PLEASE SEND QUESTIONS OR CLARIFICATIONS TO
XPRIZE FOUNDATION MAY REVISE THESE GUIDELINES DURING THE COMPETITION TO PROVIDE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE COMPETITION. THERE MAY ALSO BE UNANTICIPATED ISSUES THAT WILL REQUIRE MODIFICATIONS TO THIS DOCUMENT. THE XPRIZE FOUNDATION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE THESE GUIDELINES AS IT, IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION, DEEMS NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE. REGISTERED TEAMS WILL BE NOTIFIED OF ANY REVISIONS.
