The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the HeroX crowdsourcing platform are hosting a contest to bring attention to infrastructure in the USA. The Infrastructure Vision 2050 Challenge is accepting first-round entries until March 16th.
AEM and HeroX hope to create “an incentivized platform for innovative ideas to thrive and help shape America’s growth in the 21st Century.” They plan to gather ideas, vote for the most impactful proposals, and enter a deployment phase in July 2016.
Like our infrastructure systems, the subject range of the challenge is vast and inclusive. HeroX suggests the following for inspiration:
- Reliability: The problem of getting from point A to B with more certainty
- Efficiency: The need to reduce the amount of time needed to move people or products
- Safety: The need for safer infrastructure, either personal safety or national safety
- Congestion: The desirability of reducing the number of people and goods in transit at a given time
- Greener: The desire for infrastructure that has a more sustainable footprint
- Smarter: The use of technology to improve upon existing infrastructure or create new infrastructure
- Connected: The use of data and physical networks to enable infrastructure solutions
- Higher capacity: The need to move more people and goods; expand utility infrastructure for faster speed and more coverage
- Faster: The need for quicker access to communication networks
- Rail: The problem of creating a usable mass transit system without creating more congestion as it’s built
- Freight: The need to increase capacity when moving raw materials and goods on land, air, or sea
- Power: The need to more efficiently store, transmit and distribute the next generation of energy sources such as solar power, wind energy, and natural gas
Here’s how the competition works:
- Phase 1 “Complain”- Deadline: March 16, 2016
“…Entrants are asked to submit the area of infrastructure they feel is the most opportune or pressing problem that they see or have experienced.” - Phase 2 “Dream”- Deadline: June 1, 2016
“…Entrants are asked to submit a proposed solution idea for an infrastructure problem they have identified.” - Phase 3 “Build” – July 6, 2016 to February 7, 2017
Winners of the “Dream” phase are asked to provide a proof of concept by implementing their proposed solutions.
Total prize money for the first three phases of the competition amounts to $150,000.
For more information, visit the following links:
Tags: AEM, Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Contest, HeroX
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