Can a prize designed for the high-tech challenge of helping to get
people into space be applied to solving low-tech, down-to-Earth
problems of life and death? Pose the question to a class of MIT
students and two out of three give a resounding "yes." And the other
third adds a strong "maybe."
That was the outcome of the first
class held under a new collaboration between MIT and the
California-based X-Prize Foundation, whose founder and chairman is MIT
alumnus Peter Diamandis '83, SM '88 HST '89. The class had the task of
trying to design a new $10 million X-Prize aimed at addressing
health-care issues in the developing world.
The class was taught
by Erika Wagner SM '02, PhD '07, an instructor in the School of
Engineering and director of the new collaboration, X-Prize Lab @ MIT.
The class formed three teams, each of which was to come up with a
detailed proposal. Read More...