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By Betty Lin-Fisher
Akron Beacon Journal business writer
POSTED: 02:38 p.m. EDT, Mar 25, 2008
Could Akron be one of 10 possible testing sites for automobiles in a $10 million race to build an affordable car that could get 100 miles per gallon?
Why not, said Peter Diamandis, the chairman and founder of X Prize Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has offered up millions of dollars in prizes to encourage entrepreneurs to come up with winning ideas with specific goals.
Diamandis was at the University of Akron today speaking about his X Prize Foundation, and its various competitions. One is the recently sponsored $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize, named after insurance company Progressive Corp. of Mayfield Village.
Sixty-four teams have already pre-registered for the competition, which challenges teams to build a car that can be produced to use 100 mpg.
''I want to change the paradigm,'' said Diamandis.
Diamandis told the crowd of about 50 UA students, professors and community members that 10 U.S. cities would be chosen over the next few months to host tests for the cars in different conditions.
Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville, who was among those in attendance, asked Diamandis how Akron could become one of those 10 cities.
Diamandis said requests for proposals would be released within two weeks.
''I'd love to have Akron be one of the cities,'' he said.
Diamandis, who is also the chairman of several personal space flight companies, including one that gives people the experience of weightlessness and one that can get people a seat on a Russian spacecraft — for a hefty price — told the crowd the X Prizes are designed to spark a new generation of innovation.
''The day before something is a breakthrough — it was a crazy idea,'' said Diamandis.
He told students that his key message was: ''Whatever you do, it's hard. You've got to be passionate and have to love it. Don't do it because someone else wants you to do it.''
The first X Prize, awarded in 2004, paid $10 million to the first privately funded team that could get a three-person reusable ship 100 kilometers in the air twice within two weeks. Twenty-six teams spent $100 million to win the prize, which took eight years to achieve.
But Diamandis said he had the hardest time raising the $10 million prize money for that first prize because of the ''level of apathy and discouragement'' he faced.
''I had to believe,'' he said.
The X Prize Foundation now has several other competitions in the works, including $10 million in prizes for mapping 100 human genomes in 10 days, creating the 100 mpg vehicle and a $30 million Google Lunar Prize to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to earth.
Diamandis said there are other X Prizes in the works:
• Encouraging energy and environmental solutions;
• Life Science X Prizes to cure cancer;
• Global Development X Prizes to encourage development of systems to provide water, power and telecommunications to developing countries;
• And smaller-based prizes for local communities or groups to solve local problems.
While in Northeast Ohio, Diamandis was also planning speaking to Medina company RPM International Inc. about incentive programs and the Cleveland Foundation about flying top math and science teachers in Ohio on Diamandis' Zero-G flights. They can take passengers in a special Boeing 727 that gives people the equivalent of seven minutes of weightlessness with maneuvers of the plane. The company has had more than 5,000 people take 170 flights since 2004 from locations at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and another site in Las Vegas. If the project in Cleveland were approved, Diamandis said the flights could use the NASA Glenn Research Center. He would like eventually to get funding to encourage students to win spots on the flights, which now cost $3,950.
Diamandis also owns Space Adventures, which for a cost of $35 million a person, has flown five people into space on Russian spacecraft.
He also launched the Rocket Racing League, calling it a 21st-century Formula One Racing league using rocket-powered aircraft in a three-dimensional track in the sky. Vehicles are in development now and Diamandis said he hopes for the first public exhibition flights this spring.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at
330-996-3724 or blinfisher@
thebeaconjournal.com.
Could Akron be one of 10 possible testing sites for automobiles in a $10 million race to build an affordable car that could get 100 miles per gallon?
Why not, said Peter Diamandis, the chairman and founder of X Prize Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has offered up millions of dollars in prizes to encourage entrepreneurs to come up with winning ideas with specific goals.
Diamandis was at the University of Akron today speaking about his X Prize Foundation, and its various competitions. One is the recently sponsored $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize, named after insurance company Progressive Corp. of Mayfield Village.
Sixty-four teams have already pre-registered for the competition, which challenges teams to build a car that can be produced to use 100 mpg.
''I want to change the paradigm,'' said Diamandis.
Diamandis told the crowd of about 50 UA students, professors and community members that 10 U.S. cities would be chosen over the next few months to host tests for the cars in different conditions.
Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville, who was among those in attendance, asked Diamandis how Akron could become one of those 10 cities.
Diamandis said requests for proposals would be released within two weeks.
''I'd love to have Akron be one of the cities,'' he said.
Diamandis, who is also the chairman of several personal space flight companies, including one that gives people the experience of weightlessness and one that can get people a seat on a Russian spacecraft — for a hefty price — told the crowd the X Prizes are designed to spark a new generation of innovation.
''The day before something is a breakthrough — it was a crazy idea,'' said Diamandis.
He told students that his key message was: ''Whatever you do, it's hard. You've got to be passionate and have to love it. Don't do it because someone else wants you to do it.''
The first X Prize, awarded in 2004, paid $10 million to the first privately funded team that could get a three-person reusable ship 100 kilometers in the air twice within two weeks. Twenty-six teams spent $100 million to win the prize, which took eight years to achieve.
But Diamandis said he had the hardest time raising the $10 million prize money for that first prize because of the ''level of apathy and discouragement'' he faced.
''I had to believe,'' he said.
The X Prize Foundation now has several other competitions in the works, including $10 million in prizes for mapping 100 human genomes in 10 days, creating the 100 mpg vehicle and a $30 million Google Lunar Prize to send a robot to the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit video, images and data back to earth.
Diamandis said there are other X Prizes in the works:
• Encouraging energy and environmental solutions;
• Life Science X Prizes to cure cancer;
• Global Development X Prizes to encourage development of systems to provide water, power and telecommunications to developing countries;
• And smaller-based prizes for local communities or groups to solve local problems.
While in Northeast Ohio, Diamandis was also planning speaking to Medina company RPM International Inc. about incentive programs and the Cleveland Foundation about flying top math and science teachers in Ohio on Diamandis' Zero-G flights. They can take passengers in a special Boeing 727 that gives people the equivalent of seven minutes of weightlessness with maneuvers of the plane. The company has had more than 5,000 people take 170 flights since 2004 from locations at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and another site in Las Vegas. If the project in Cleveland were approved, Diamandis said the flights could use the NASA Glenn Research Center. He would like eventually to get funding to encourage students to win spots on the flights, which now cost $3,950.
Diamandis also owns Space Adventures, which for a cost of $35 million a person, has flown five people into space on Russian spacecraft.
He also launched the Rocket Racing League, calling it a 21st-century Formula One Racing league using rocket-powered aircraft in a three-dimensional track in the sky. Vehicles are in development now and Diamandis said he hopes for the first public exhibition flights this spring.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at
330-996-3724 or blinfisher@
thebeaconjournal.com.
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