Win-Win : Article Summary

This article was on The Economist website, published September 8th 2008. The link to the article is: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12077182

The article revolves around the subject of prizes that create incentive for the development of new ideas and products that could, for example, improve environmental conditions. It states that a well focused prize can lead to ‘radical and sudden breakthroughs’, inspire dedication and, more importantly, solutions that industries seems reluctant to develop. Foundations developing these prizes already exist; for example, the X Prize Foundation created the Progressive Automotive X prize, which offers $10 million to anyone who can design a car that gets 100 miles per gallon. This foundation is brainstorming more ideas for prizes that should inspire new forms of clean, cost effective and renewable energy; it is also open to anyone to submit their own ideas for a prize. Other existing prizes include a prize for a way to remove man made greenhouse gases, for breakthroughs in marine renewable energy, etc. These all have one factor in common: they offer a large amount of money.
Personally, I think the concept of a prize, especially a prize focused on something that everyone can benefit from, is a good one. It allows people’s natural competitiveness and need for the limelight to be focused on something that may improve conditions on earth drastically. However, it has to be considered that not everyone happens to have sufficient spare change to fund such a prize, so it won’t be as if these prizes will allow for leaps in advancement in every area. Therefore, let’s hope that human’s natural competitiveness and greed aren’t the driving force behind these innovations, but the genuine concern for the environment.