|
|
Commercializing innovations
AWARDS and incentives have been used throughout history to advance higher technology with mixed success. Experts say prizes also can be a more efficient way of driving innovation than conventional government funding, or even venture capital financing.
Among prominent success stories was the series of prizes established by the British government in 1714 for a method that could precisely calculate the longitude of a ship at sea.
Although mariners had learnt to use the stars to determine their latitude, the problem of figuring longitude had eluded the world’s best minds for centuries. As a seafaring nation during the era of discovery, England felt that the problem was of a serious nature.
Thus, the Parliament set a top prize of 20,000 pounds, equivalent to roughly $2.5 million today, for a method for calculating longitude accurate to within half a degree.
In 1775, a prize offered by the French Academy of Sciences helped advance the development of inorganic chemistry. In 1795, Napoleon’s Society for the Encouragement of Industry offered a prize for a method of preserving food that could be used by the French military. It was awarded in 1810 to Nicolas Appert, who invented food canning.
Newspapers offered some turn-of-the-century prizes. The Lonon Daily Mail, for example, offered a prize for the first flight across the English Channel. Governments or fledgling industry groups offered others, such as the Aero Club of France.
Peter Diamandis, an aspiring astronaut and former aerospace engineer launched the X Prize in 1996. He wanted the $10 million purse to stimulate development of new technologies capable of taking ordinary people into space. He also envisioned the contest as a way to fulfill his own dreams of rocketing into space.
The X Prize has revitalized the practice of giving out prizes, serving as a reminder of how a substantial cash award can be a powerful catalyst for generating new ideas.
Besides this, hotel-chain owner Robert Bigelow announced this year he was offering a $50 million prize for the first American team to launch a five-passenger spacecraft into orbit, and repeat the flight within 60 days. Bigelow also plans to offer the winner an option to provide service to a proposed space habitat his company has been developing in Las Vegas.
Also worth mentioning, is Pentagon agency, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which is responsible for developing advanced technologies and has established a $1 million prize as an incentive for developers of new robotic vehicles. The idea holds special appeal in terms of government funding, because the Pentagon usually funds technology development directly under government contracts.
Be it government agencies or private investors, cash awards motivate inventors and innovators. While critics lambast such practices for “commercializing” creativity, one must remember that nothing in life is free and this includes all things innovative.
The writer
|
|
|
