Faster and Greener-- Pocket Airports - CAFE Foundation

7 • Computerized stability and low-speed control• V/STOL safety and reliability• Nano-materials• Drag reductionTHE IDEAL TECHNOLOGY PRIZEThe Green Flight Challenge is one of several NASA Centennial Challenge technologyprize competitions, a program authorized by the U.S. Congress to rapidly advance andconverge important new technologies. The Centennial Challenge Program relies uponnon-government organizations such as the CAFE Foundation to host and conduct itscompetitions and provides zero funding to those host organizations. Consequently, hostorganizations are expected to solicit private donations or sponsors in order to administerthe competitions.To maximally succeed, each Centennial Challenge should strive for the attributes of anideal technology prize. An ideal technology prize can be defined as follows:• Transformative—opens a new paradigm• Converges cutting-edge technologies• Attracts many teams and national media• Delivers huge leverage of prize funding invested (v. “procurement”)• Rapidly delivers benefits to the nation and its public• Impeccable fairness without loopholes or “Parlor-tricks”• Grows a new industry and jobs via private funding• Leapfrogs stagnated products that a depressed market cannot reinvent• Indelibly links its sponsor’s name to the achievement• Darwinian: inclusively draws from a large gene pool of citizen innovators• Rewards “best of breed’ rather than ‘first to demonstrate’• Equitably circumvents the innovator’s dilemma• Stimulates education in science, technology, engineering and mathmatics• If phased, publishes all rules for all phases at the outset(Teams hate rules changes)• Aims to benefit the masses, not the elite• Is funded just enough, not extravagantly• Offers its funder risk-free investing: No result, no prize paidTo achieve all of the above, the ideal technology prize needs a synchronicity of need andopportunity. Societal and global environmental needs must coincide with an array of