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- #11 I don’t like the ”Healthspan” in the $101M Xprize Healthspan competition
#11 I don’t like the ”Healthspan” in the $101M Xprize Healthspan competition
But there are also plenty of reasons to be cheerful about it
Peter Ottsjö
August 28, 2024
✅ Designing a longevity prize competition that really connects with people. ✅ Vaccines for cancer and dementia. ✅ Frankensteinian undertones in MIT Technology Review. ✅ Do we need a more fundamental understanding of aging to make progress? ✅ Meeting Steven Austad at the ARDD conference in Copenhagen. ✅ Insights from Episode 6 of the LEVITY Podcast.
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This longevity prize is keeping it simple - but to win it will be extremely difficult
There’s $101 million up for grabs, but this is promising to be one hell of a treasure hunt.
First of all: what am I talking about?
Right, so those of you who read my very first newsletter might vaguely recollect me mentioning the then just announced Xprize Healthspan.
Founded three decades ago by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, Xprize Foundation has launched 30 competitions with a total of $500M in prize money. According to the foundation, it is ”the world’s leader in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges”.
But Xprize Healthspan stands out from the crowd, and not just because it is the biggest competition in the foundation’s history (as measured in dollars), but also because the bar is set so dauntingly high.
