The winner of the Ansari X Prize, SpaceShipOne, designed by Scaled Composites. (Image by Santosh Dawara on Flickr.)
Instructor(s)
Dr. Erika Wagner
MIT Course Number
ESD.172J / EC.421J
As Taught In
Fall 2009
Level
Graduate
Course Description
Course Features
- Selected video lectures
- Captions/transcript
- Selected lecture notes
- Projects and examples
- Assignments with examples
Course Description
In 2004, the Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight captured the public's imagination and revolutionized an industry, leveraging a $10M prize purse into over $100M in innovation. Building from that success, the X PRIZE Foundation is now developing new prizes to focus innovation around "Grand Challenge" themes, including genomics, energy, healthcare, and education.
This course will examine the intersection of incentives and innovation, drawing on economic models, historic examples, and recent experience of the X PRIZE Foundation to help develop a future prize in Energy Storage Technologies.