Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

Join our Team & Take the Challenge!

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE invites you to become a member of our team – our Carbonrally team.  We are excited to be leading a team on Carbonrally.com, a website that develops honor-based competitions that call for small changes, which lead to big impacts.

While X PRIZEs are focused on making big impacts, many supporters have asked how they can make a difference on a day-to-day level.  Even small efforts can have a huge effect.  Carbonrally not only challenges people to make these small changes, but it tracks the collective impact of these changes so that people can see exactly what they have accomplished. Bit by bit, based upon their participation, the Carbonrally community learns the connections between climate and lifestyle, and rack-up literally tons of carbon benefits along the way.

 

In addition to becoming a part of our Carbonrally team, we invite you to participate in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE sponsored Lowrider Challenge.  This challenge helps participants to understand how to gain fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. 

We hope that you invest 5 minutes to accept our invitation to become a part of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team and register to take the Lowrider Challenge.  

 

Here’s how it works:

 

To start:

1.    Join the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team

2.    Take the Lowrider Challenge and start saving fuel and reducing carbon emissions

 If you want to do more:

3.    Visit the Carbonrally Challenge tab to learn about and participate in more challenges.  A new featured challenge is posted every few weeks. Most challenges are easy, short-term actions, and are categorized by transport, school or office, home, food, wild card, and date.

4.    Do you have an idea of your own?  Carbonrally allows the public to propose great ideas for saving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.  The Carbonrally community votes on the best ideas to become Featured Challenges.  We want to sponsor and participate in lots of automotive-related challenges in order to educate the public about the immediate impact that they can have. Share your idea by visiting the Carbonrally Workshop page. Then, let us know that your idea has been posted by leaving a comment on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Team page and we will get out the word for people to vote on it.

5.    Do you want to know how the team is doing? Carbonrally tracks the collective impacts, which reveals the power of many people acting together to get the job done.  Visit Carbonrally.com to track our progress by teams, members, and locations.

6.    Invite friends, family, co-workers, or share broadly. The more people who participate on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team, the greater difference we can make. 

 

Join our team and lead the charge to educate the public about how small changes can have a huge impact.

Fuel Our Future Now Introduced to Educators

www.FuelOurFutureNow.com was formally introduced to more than 12,000 teachers, science coordinators, curriculum planners, administrators, principals, teacher educators, industry representatives, and students from all over the country at the 57th Annual NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) National Conference on Science in Education in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on March 12-22, 2009.

 Exterior of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

www.FuelOurFutureNow.com is a new, dynamic, online knowledge center inspired by the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE and created in collaboration with Discovery Education, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the X PRIZE Foundation.

 Brad Fountain at the Discovery Education Booth

In an interactive workshop on www.FuelOurFutureNow.com led by Brad Fountain, Manager of New Products, Discovery Education Network, participants learned how to fuel K-12 student curiosity about alternative energy sources, advanced vehicle design, climate change, and the future of transportation with engaging classroom resources connected to the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Education Program. For example, the participants built and modified balloon-powered cars as part of a hands-on activity from Lesson 4 of the grades 6-8 curriculum, where students demonstrate the relationship between weight and fuel efficiency by constructing a model vehicle and conducting an experiment.

 Joel Treadwell photo of a completed balloon-powered car

Members from the Louisiana-based Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Registered Team Global-E were also present as Team Leader Carl Guichard discussed the reasons why they have entered three newly-designed Mainstream class vehicles in the competition, as well as their efforts to engage the greater New Orleans education community and to promote interest in science, technology, engineering, and math career development.

 Joel Treadwell photo of Carl Guichard addressing participants

In the days following the NSTA Conference there have been many articles and reviews of www.FuelOurFutureNow.com. Two of note include those appearing in the T.H.E. Journal and District Administration.

Flip the Switch for Earth Hour

 

 

The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE places a major focus on affordability, safety, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. This progress is needed because today’s oil consumption is unsustainable and because automotive emissions significantly contribute to global warming and climage change.

 

Make a statement of concern about our planet and climate change by participating in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 28, 2009. Individuals, businesses, governments, and communities in over 2,900 cities and towns in 83 countries will switch off their lights at 8:30 PM local time for one hour, wherever they live on the planet earth. In fact, over 829 icons and landmarks around the world – the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, Big Ben in London, the Empire State Building in New York, the Acropolis in Athens, the Colosseum in Rome, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sydney Opera House, the Las Vegas Strip, and others – are expected to go dark to show their support.

 

Turn out. Take action.

How Do You Innovate in Today’s Economy?: The incentive2innovate Conference 2009

The X PRIZE Foundation is hosting the incentive2innovate Conference June 8 & 9 in New York City with partner BT Global Services and presented by the John Templeton Foundation and the United Nations. The i2i conference will highlight two powerful and significantly underutilized tools: OPEN COLLABORATION and INCENTIVIZED COMPETITION.  We are bringing together some of the world's greatest innovators to share best practices on how these tools can solve the challenges facing businesses, philanthropy and government. 

We will be welcomed to the conference by Amir Dossal, Executive Director, United Nations Office for Partnerships, and Peter Diamandis, Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation.  Day One, we will explore how open collaboration and opening doors to the global talent pool helps to power innovation and productivity with a presentation by Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World.  We will introduce the new McKinsey & Company report on incentive prizes “And the winner is...”: Capturing the Promise of Prizes” with McKinsey partner Paul Jansen followed by a panel discussion moderated by  Matthew Bishop, Chief Business Writer/US Business Editor, The Economist and  Co-Author of Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World.  Panel participants will include Peter Diamandis on “Making the Impossible Possible” and Dean Kamen, Founder, FIRST and President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation.  Day one will conclude with a keynote address on Open Source Media by Arianna Huffington,  Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief, Huffington Post.

Day two will continue the discussion with presentation tracks in healthcare, energy & the environment, global development and open innovation culture. The lunchtime keynote address will feature Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director, Office of Science & Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States and the day will conclude with a keynote address by Reid Hoffman, Founder, CEO and Chairman, LinkedIn.

 Registration is open to anyone but space will be limited to 350 attendees.  Sign up now for the opportunity to hear about cutting edge solutions to today’s challenges and a chance for unparalleled networking with your peers.

For more information about the incentive2innovate Conference 2009 and to register:  http://i2i.xprize.org/index.php

 

Join us for a FuelOurFutureNow.com Teacher Workshop!

FuelOurFutureNow.com at NSTA

Planning on being at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) 2009 National Conference on Science Education in New Orleans, March 19-22?

 

 

If so, we invite you to attend a special workshop session, Fuel Our Future Now, on Saturday, March 21, from 8:00 – 9:30 AM CDT at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room 225.

 

Participants will learn how to fuel K-12 student curiosity about alternative energy sources, advanced vehicle design, climate change, and the future of transportation with engaging classroom resources connected to the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Education Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Come get a sneak peek at a brand-new STEM curriculum, and find out how you can win a free DVD set.

 

Also stop by Discovery Education Booth 242 in the NSTA Exhibit Hall to pick up your free FuelOurFutureNow.com webcard.

Progressive Automotive X PRIZE at The Washington Auto Show

Members of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE were at The Washington Auto Show at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. last week.

 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Deputy Assistant Secretary David E. Rodgers announced the launch of FuelOurFutureNow.com at press event on Tuesday, February 3rd at the Government Technology Theater:

FuelOurFutureNow.com is an online knowledge center created by The DOE, The X PRIZE Foundation, and Discovery Education that is designed to excite K-12 students about energy efficiency. A demo of the website was displayed at the U.S. Government Agencies booth, and web cards were distributed to the general public:

The Green Car Pavilion, hosted by the Green Car Journal, showcased electric, alternative fuel, clean diesel, and advanced technology vehicles. On display was Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Registered Team applicant  Tri-Hybrid:

   

Attendees also had the opportunity to see Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Letter of Intent Contender  HP2g:

   

Be sure to to check out FuelOurFutureNow.com and read the related coverage of the launch, including the announcement in AutoblogGreen. 

Progressive Automotive X PRIZE and DOE Launch FuelOurFutureNow.com

Yesterday at the Washington DC Auto Show - together with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and Discovery Education - we launched the first phase of an online knowledge center designed to teach K-12 students and the public about advanced vehicle technologies, energy efficiency, climate change, alternative fuels, and the science, technology, engineering and math that underlie efficient vehicle development:

 

FuelOurFutureNow.com features activities for grade levels K-12, as well as high-quality videos, virtual labs, and other interactive resources intended for use from the classroom to the living room.  Key goals are to generate excitement about energy-efficient vehicles, and to inspire young men and women to pursue careers in advanced vehicle development.

In addition to the educational content available today at launch, FuelOurFutureNow.com will evolve with updates throughout the life of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE.  And viewers can look forward to following the race series by means of a real-time, telemetry-based online experience. 

FuelOurFutureNow.com is the first of three components of the DOE-funded Education Program. Later we will be launching a national high school student contest, and organizing educational events in host cities of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE race series.  For more information, see our press release here.   

Learn More About Our Education Program

As an educational non-profit, the X PRIZE Foundation exists to inspire innovation and creativity in young people all over the world. We seek to excite students about our competitions and to develop unique opportunities for learning. While X PRIZEs strive for radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity, the educational programs that go along with them strive for breakthroughs in the way students approach the world.

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE Education Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, will engage students and the public in learning about advanced vehicle technologies, energy efficiency, climate change, alternative fuels, and the science, technology, engineering, and math behind efficient vehicle development.

A key goal of this national program will be to inspire youth to learn more about and pursue careers in advanced vehicle development, and to generate excitement about the energy-efficient vehicle options of the near-future.

The Education Program comprises three integrated components that will educate the public and create a multi-tiered approach to engage students and showcase the 21st century skills, knowledge, and expertise needed to succeed in work and life, including creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, communication and collaboration. The components include an online knowledge center with vehicle telemetry and an eco-feedback indicator, a national high school student contest, and race series host city events.

Check back in the weeks ahead for more information regarding the launch of the online knowledge center in early February 2009.

UCS Petitions for U.S. Hybrid Minivan Release

Most mothers will tell you that size does matter. In fact, size is so important to me, that I have continued to stay in a mediocre relationship, rather than follow my heart and make the love connection that has consumed me for years – a hybrid.

Toyota released its redesigned Estima Hybrid minivan almost one year ago. This sleekly shaped van boasts fuel efficiency and emissions equivalent to a compact size vehicle. This makes my knees buckle. The fact that it seats eight makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl at an Osmond Brothers concert.

The heartbreaking reality is that the Estima Hybrid is not available outside of Japan. Thankfully, the forward thinking folks at the Union of Concerned Scientists have taken matters into their own hands. They have launched a petition drive in hopes of securing more than 14,000 signatures to demand that Toyota bring the Estima Hybrid to the United States. Making the Estima available to U.S. drivers would be a step in the right direction.

While many of us strive to be good stewards of the environment, it is difficult to balance the every day needs of our children with the long term goal of saving the world for them. The idea of whizzing past freeway traffic in an in-line seated pod sounds terrific in theory! But what do I do when my husband has to unexpectedly work late and I need to pick up the kids for cello practice? I don’t even want to think about carpooling, field trips, or the numerous excursions I have to make to deliver kids and caboodle from point A to point B.

I have only been at Automotive X Prize for a short time, but I have spoken with many potential participants and noted numerous guideline comments. Some ideas are attainable, others, I am afraid, we may never see. But, to me, the most appealing thing about the AXP is its real world application. There is an actuality that we can have it all --fuel efficiency, low emissions, and room for Fido -- and we won’t have to wait a decade to sit in the driver’s seat. Mom’s of the world are waiting!