Each year, brilliant scientists, philanthropists, heads of innovation, and corporate leaders gather for a multi-day Visioneering workshop to brainstorm, debate, and prioritize which of the world's Grand Challenges might be solved through incentivized prize competition.
This year’s Visioneering takes place May 7-8 in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, where attendees compete with one another to design and pitch innovative, incentivized prize concepts across a variety of Grand Challenge areas in the hopes that theirs would become the next XPRIZE launched. (The $10M Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE was one such past winner that emerged from a Visioneering workshop.)
I am so incredibly humbled that the XPRIZE has asked me to lead the THE FUTURE OF WORK team. If you have been following my research, I don't need to remind you that as much as 50% of jobs in the US and Europe are at risk of being lost to automation in the next decade or two.
What are the risks and opportunities created by technological unemployment? How will we prepare a workforce when jobs are scarcer, require more skill, and people work and live for decades longer than they used to? What are the opportunities to make work more rewarding and enjoyable? How can XPRIZE competitions ease this transition in society?
These are the questions that we will try to answer next week in Los Angeles, alongside some of the smartest and most incredible people on the planet.
Visioneering is where ideas compete. Throughout the experience, attendees pitch their ideas to each other and vote to advance the strongest concepts. Visioneering culminates with the award of the Grand Prize to the winning prize concept. The XPRIZE team then works with the attendees who created the concept to develop it into an XPRIZE competition that has the potential to be launched and awarded.
Let the best idea win. Whatever comes out, it will be a win for all of humanity.