1.  THE FIRST “BIG” OCEAN CHALLENGE:  1714 LONGITUDE ACT

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Toward the end of the 17th century, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain were all unable to accurately determine a ship’s longitude at sea.  Each country offered vast prizes to stimulate innovation on the era’s crucial problem. 

Britain ultimately solved the problem as a result of a formal challenge-based innovation process put into place via the Longitude Act of 1714.  This act of Parliament clearly defined the objective, established intermediate milestones, specified prize money and created a judging capability, called the Board of Longitude. 

The Longitude Act offered a series of rewards, rather than a single prize.  The rewards increased in alignment with the accuracy achieved.  The Grand Prize exceeded US $1 million (in 2019 dollars). 

The initial Act was so successful that the same process was used for 114 years to solve a large number of other seafaring-related challenges.   For more details: click here.   

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2.  OCEAN OF OPPORTUNITIES (SHIPPING & LOGISTICS INNOVATION CHALLENGE)

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This site is sponsored by Hapag-Lloyd, K-Line, ONE and Yusen Logistics.  It is headquartered in Singapore.  For more details: click here. 

In 2020, they had two different innovation tracks with a total of 8 different challenges.  Their challenges offer small cash prizes (up to $8,000 in total to be won) and potential access to a Hong-Kong-based accelerator.  This year's challenges were:​

General Track:

• Virtual walkthrough for vessels

• Digitalising and categorising contract terms

• Determining the necessity of container inspection

• Efficient data exchange with non-system-integrated CFS

• Visualisation of roll trailer management

AI Track:

• Schedule reliability prediction using publicly available data (AI Track)

• Dynamic pricing based on all determinant factors (AI Track)

• Identification of high-risk vessels based on open-source intelligence (AI Track)

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3.  2019 XPRIZE FOR AUTONOMOUS OCEAN EXPLORATION

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The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE for Advancements in Autonomous Ocean Exploration offered teams a grand prize of US $4 million to invent a way to map the entire global ocean floor in only 10 years, thereby improving on current technology that will require over 100 years to complete the task.  

This challenge took 3-1/2 years from launch to completion with a number of intermediate milestones and checkpoints.  Beyond the competing teams, it involved many judges and advisors to evaluate the different approaches and determine if any of the teams had developed a winning solution that qualified them for the prize money.  The Grand Prize was awarded on 31 May 2019.

“The incentive prize contest has existed for centuries. From the inception of the Longitude Prize in 1714, through the Orteig Prize that compelled Charles Lindbergh to fly across the Atlantic, prizes have ignited passions and brought about breakthroughs that no one thought possible.” (source)