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Elon Musk announces Global Learning XPRIZE dual winners
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PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: Peter Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman, XPRIZE and Global Learning XPRIZE sponsor Elon Musk attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)
By David Rosenfeld | drosenfeld@scng.com | The Daily Breeze
PUBLISHED: May 16, 2019 at 4:33 pm | UPDATED: May 16, 2019 at 4:34 pm
At a Google office building in Playa Vista this week — in a former airplane hangar where the Spruce Goose was built — Elon Musk made an announcement:
There were two winners of the $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE that he financed — capping a five-year process.
The prize — which aims to develop educational technology for remote villages in underdeveloped countries, using inexpensive tablet computers — ultimately went to Kitkit School from South Korea, and onebillion from Kenya and the United Kingdom. Musk, for his part, spent about 10 minutes at the award ceremony Wednesday, May 15 — just enough time to say a few words, take a couple photos and then jam.
"Thank you to all the XPRIZE people and teams who made this happen," Musk said shortly before announcing the winners among the five finalists. "I just provided some money."
Musk, however, had an upcoming SpaceX launch out of Cape Canaveral on his mind. The company he founded, based in Hawthorne was expected to launch its Starlink mission to send 60 communication satellites into orbit. The launch, also scheduled for Wednesday, was ultimately scrubbed and pushed back at least a day.
That the two events coincided was fitting; XPRIZE and the satellites have similar missions: to bring education and communication to remote parts of the world.
PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: (R) Global Learning XPRIZE Grand Prize Winners Sooninn Lee and Gunho Lee attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)
PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: Actor LeVar Burton attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)
PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: (L-R) Peter Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman, XPRIZE and Global Learning XPRIZE sponsor Elon Musk attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)
PLAYA VISTA, CALIFORNIA – MAY 15: (L-R) Emily Church, Executive Director of the Global Learning, XPRIZE, Peter Diamandis, Founder & Executive Chairman, XPRIZE, Jamie Stuart, Global Learning XPRIZE Grand Prize Winner, Andrew Ashe, Global Learning XPRIZE Grand Prize Winner, Elon Musk, Global Learning XPRIZE Sponsor, Sooninn Lee, Global Learning XPRIZE Grand Prize Winner, Gunho Lee, XPRIZE Grand Prize Winner and Anousheh Ansari, CEO, XPRIZE attend the Global Learning XPRIZE Foundation Grand-prize Awards at Google Playa Vista Office on May 15, 2019 in Playa Vista, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Global Learning XPRIZE)
Educating the unreachable
The two winning Global Learning XPRIZE teams will each receive $5 million to further advance their mobile technology applications to include more languages and to be put in the hands of more children.
The challenge for the XPRIZE was relatively simple: Design a mobile platform that children can use in remote areas to learn how to read, write and do basic math. There were 198 teams that applied and five were selected as finalists. Together, the teams reportedly invested roughly $300 million — including about $200 million from the five finalists alone.
"Our mission is to find problems that are not moving fast enough and challenge the world to solve the problem," said Peter Diamandas, who founded the XPRIZE Foundation 25 years ago. "We're in a world where every individual has access to more capability than ever before."
The Global Learning XPRIZE marks a shift for the foundation, which up until now has mostly staged contests to advance commercial space flight. Such contests were one of the reasons SpaceX and other companies were founded.
There are currently about 250 million children in impoverished parts of the world who do cannot read and write, XPRIZE officials said in a statement. To educate these children, it's estimated the world will need roughly 68.8 million additional teachers in the next 10 years.
"We cannot build schools fast enough or train teachers fast enough," said Global Learning XPRIZE Executive Director Emily Church. "But what we will show you tonight is what we can do. We see this as an opportunity so that we can transform this into something the whole world can build upon."
XPRIZE selected the five finalists about two years ago, each receiving $1 million to help them as they vied to be the ultimate winners.
Their applications then went into the hands of 2,700 children — using Google tablets — in 150 villages in Tanzania over a 15 month period. They all showed positive learning achievements, officials said.
But for the applications to succeed, the software had to be both effective and fun. Every application created through the Global Learning XPRIZE is now available as open-source software, so that educators around the world can adapt them to their own languages and culture without licensing fees.
"Having a competition to bring some great minds together to solve this issue using education technology is amazing," said Dario Gentili with onebillion. "It's just another stepping stone in a journey of reaching as many children as possible."
The ultimate goal of the prize is to educate 50 million children worldwide.
LeVar Burton, a former cast member of Star Trek and well-known for his Reading Rainbow program on PBS, spoke during the event to offer words of inspiration. He called the work of the team's competing "God's work."
"We are a species of storytellers, we are telling our stories to one another all the time," he said at the event. "It's our storytelling and our link to our storytelling lineage that connects us to our imaginations and it's our imaginations that can devise and design anything we want and have done for generations
Even for those teams that did not win the prize, their journey does not stop here. They each plan to advance their platforms and continue spreading it to the developing world.
"No matter what happens on this stage," Burton said, "I know that children around the world will be the winners."
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David Rosenfeld
David Rosenfeld has been working as a professional journalist for nearly 20 years at newspapers, magazines and websites. He's covered murder trials, interviewed governors and presidential candidates and once did a flip in a biplane for a story assignment. Before joining The Daily Breeze in 2018 to cover El Segundo, Hawthorne and aerospace, he worked at The Beach Reporter in Redondo Beach. In his free time, David loves outdoor sports such as sailing, mountain biking and golfing.
Follow David Rosenfeld	@RosenfeldReport
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