The XPrize Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to funding entrepreneurial tech ventures, has announced a new competition — one that can earn contestants a whopping $7 million to put toward their endeavors if they win.

The goal? Developing low-cost, affordable technologies for mapping the depths of the ocean.

Named the Ocean Discovery XPrize and conducted in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the foundation's explorative competition, which is open to the general public, seeks to award the prize money to engineers and entrepreneurs that can come up with the most complex and efficient oceanographic mapper and surpass the current sonar technologies that are regularly implemented in field research. In terms of the technological rubric for the contest, entrant teams are required to come up with a hi-res bathymetric map (AKA an underwater mapper) that can develop images of particular objects, locate and identify archaeological, biological or geological attributes, and, as a separate bonus prize, chart a chemical or biological signal directly to its source.

"Historically, access to the deep ocean has been limited by the extraordinary physical challenges of exploring this extreme environment, high cost, limited technological advancements, and lack of investment," read an official statement posted on XPrize's website. "[The] prize will incentivize teams to develop technologies to detect the source of chemical and biological signals underwater."

As per the nonprofit, the competition will be divided into two testing rounds: the first will have teams investigate an area 2,000 meters deep, while the second will conduct a round exploring an area 4,000 meters in depth.

The NOAA will award the additional $1 million for the bonus signal trapper.

Learn more about the Ocean Discovery XPrize in the video clip below.

 

Via: The Verge

Photo: NOAA | Flickr