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Money Makes the World Go Round

Money makes the world go around, or so it is said. I don’t know where this statement came from, but it probably dates back to at least Christopher Columbus’s time. It might surprise you to know, though, that Columbus did not gain rapid approval for his expedition, nor did he come by the financial resources for his adventures easily. The famed explorer was rejected at least three times--by the king of Portugal, the duke of Medina-Sedonia, and the count of Medina-Celi--before finally the winning approval from the king and queen of Spain.

It is still difficult to obtain money, but for bright, motivated people with good ideas there is plenty of money to be found. To this end, many of the exponential advances outlined in this blog are now being funded by large corporations with deep pockets. For instance, IBM has large initiatives underway in both supercomputing and brain scanning. Toyota and Honda are committing sizeable resources toward the development of robotics, and Intel, BASF, and GE are funding multimillion-dollar nanotechnology initiatives.

Venture capitalists are also investing considerable sums in promising biotechnology and renewable energy start-ups, and, of course, universities and the federal governments are all making strategic investments in a myriad of emerging technologies.

But even all of this money isn’t enough for some. In recent years there has been an explosion of individuals and foundations willing to grant large cash prizes to individuals or companies capable of achieving certain technological milestones. One of the better known and more recent examples is the Ansari X Prize, which awarded $10 million to Burt Rutan and Jim Benson in 2004 for becoming the first individuals to build a private space vehicle capable of carrying three people 100 kilometers above the earth, return, then repeat the trick within two weeks.

The foundation is now offering similar prizes for the first person or group to sequence 100 human genomes in ten days, and another prize to whoever can produce an automobile capable of getting 100 miles per gallon. (Note: The following 5-minute video provides an overview of the genomics X Prize.)

In early 2007 Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Airlines, got into the act by offering a $25 million prize to anyone who could develop a technology capable of taking 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the environment. On a slightly more business-oriented level, NetFlix is offering a $1 million prize for anyone who can create an algorithm that improves the accuracy of its movie recommendation service.

It might be easy to dismiss these prizes as mere publicity stunts, but remember Charles Lindbergh didn’t just fly across the Atlantic to gain world fame—he did it to claim the $25,000 Orteig Prize. And in claiming the prize, he not only achieved fame, he also gave a much needed boost to the nascent aerospace industry. It is quite possible that Ansari’s X Prize will do much the same for genomics and DARPA’s $2 million “Urban Challenge” could do the same for robotics.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future trends, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and associations.

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