Prizes For Ideas

AIC-Sangam Incubation Program

Clean Cooking, Clean Air & Water Conservation, Energy Efficient Buildings & Appliances, and Climate-Smart Agriculture

AIC-Sangam is looking for entrepreneurs who want to work on their innovations to fight climate change.

If your innovation can give us a solution to fight climate change, then come join us and be a part of our Incubation Cohort-2022!The inaugural Milken-Motsepe Prize in AgriTech is a global competition for innovative solutions to increase economic value to farmers, from seed to sale. Registration is free, with a $1 million grand prize available for the winning team and $1 million in a range of additional prizes. Teams will also receive free training resources, mentoring, and networking opportunities.

Milken Institute

Technological Solutions, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The inaugural Milken-Motsepe Prize in AgriTech is a global competition for innovative solutions to increase economic value to farmers, from seed to sale. Registration is free, with a $1 million grand prize available for the winning team and $1 million in a range of additional prizes. Teams will also receive free training resources, mentoring, and networking opportunities.

Acumen Fund

Water, Health, Agriculture, Energy, Housing, Education, in East Africa, India, Pakistan & West Africa.

Acumen Fund invests in businesses that bring essential goods and services, such as access to clean water, reliable health services, or formal housing options, to “base of the pyramid” (BoP) customers.

Ashden Award for Renewable Energy

Sustainable Energy

The Ashden Awards bring to light inspiring sustainable energy solutions in the UK and developing world and help ensure that they are spread more widely.

The Awesome Foundation

The Awesome Foundation is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time. Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly. These micro-grants, $1,000 or the local equivalent, come out of pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects.

Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Design, Material, Process, Service, Tool, Technology, Innovation.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems.

Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation

Education, Emerging Markets, Arts, Policy.

The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation identifies programs that embody its vision, and seeks to assist those programs in a meaningful way. The Foundation supports a wide variety of innovative programs in the cultural and performing arts, the sciences, academics and public policy.

Empowering People Award

Water & Sanitation, Energy, Agriculture, Health, Waste Management, Housing & Construction, Information & Communication Technology

An inititative of Siemens Stiftung, the “empowering people. Award” aims to identify simple and appropriate technological innovations and make them visible and accessible to everyone.

Energy Globe Award

Energy, Environment, Water, Youth

The Energy Globe Award is presented annually to outstanding and sustainable projects in the area of environment and energy. Awards are presented on the national level and the international level for the five categories of Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Youth.

Grand Challenges in Global Health

Global Health

Grand Challenges in Global Health is modeled after the grand challenges formulated more than 100 years ago by mathematician David Hilbert. His list of important unsolved problems has encouraged innovation in mathematics research ever since.

Hult Prize

The Hult Prize encourages the world's brightest business minds to compete in teams to solve the planet's biggest challenges with innovative ideas for sustainable start-up enterprises. Annual Hult Prize winners can make their ideas reality with the help of USD $1 million in seed funding.

International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)

Design Strategy, Design Concept, Product Experience, Research.

Started in 1980 by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the International Design Excellence Awards program (IDEA) fosters business and public understanding about the impact of design excellence on the quality of life and the economy.

Legatum Fellowship

Innovation, Sustainability, Promoting Prosperity in Low-Income Countries.

The Legatum Center administers a fellowship program for incoming and current MIT students, across all academic and professional disciplines, who demonstrate the potential to create innovative, sustainable, for-profit enterprises that promote prosperity in low-income countries. Students who are committed to implementing business plans upon graduation are encouraged to apply.

MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab Region - Arab Startup Competition

Global Development, Startups, Innovation.

Now in its 10th year, the MITEF is calling for applications for its Arab Startup Competition. Three focus areas: Ideas, Startups, and Social Entrepreneurship, with total prize money on offer totaling USD $160,000.

MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition

Emerging markets, Energy, Life Science, Mobile, Products & Services, Web/IT.

Now in its 22nd year, the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a leading-edge forum for students and researchers in the MIT community to act on their talent, ideas and energy to launch tomorrow’s leading firms.

MIT Solve

Global Development

Solve is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a mission to solve world challenges. Solve is a marketplace for social impact innovation. Through open innovation Challenges, Solve finds incredible tech-based social entrepreneurs all around the world.

MIT Water Innovation Prize

Water & Sanitation

The MIT Water Innovation Prize is a solutions-to-market competition focused on water startups. Through the competition, MIT seeks to establish a platform to foster water innovation at MIT and in the surrounding community, while also supporting the commercialization of breakthrough, scalable water technologies and processes across a range of domestic and global sectors. The prize includes $20k in innovation grants.

The Roddenberry Prize

Innovation, Technology, humanitarian.

The Roddenberry Prize awards a total of one million dollars to five bold ideas that put humanity first, to benefit a large and diverse population. Fifty years ago, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry envisioned a boldly better future, full of optimism, driven by exploration and strengthened by diversity. Yet urgent challenges today threaten humanity and the infinite possibilities of tomorrow. The Prize seeks solutions that are feasible and replicable, with potential to scale the magnitude of their impact; and are strategic, to alter the status quo by addressing systemic needs for a boldly better future.

Environmental Sustainability, Education, Economic Opportunity, Health, Peace and Human Rights, Sustainable Markets

The Skoll Foundation presents the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship each year to a select group of social entrepreneurs whose proven innovations are disrupting an unjust and unsustainable status quo and have demonstrated impact on solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Stockholm Junior Water Prize

Water

The international Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition brings together the world's brightest young scientists to encourage their continued interest in water and the environment. The competition is open to young people between the age of 15 and 20 who have conducted water-related projects focusing on local, regional, national or global topics of environmental, scientific, social or technological importance.

The Tech Awards

Technology

The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.

Virgin - Got a Big Idea?

B-Corps, Start-Ups, Entreprenuership, Climate Change.

Virgin is always looking for the next BIG thing. Especially if it builds on our exciting businesses or creates brand new ones. All of the Virgin companies live and breathe their core brand values and all new proposals or ideas need to reflect these values.

World Habitat Awards

Housing and Shelter

The World Habitat Awards were established in 1985 by the Building and Social Housing Foundation as part of its contribution to the United Nations International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. Two awards are given annually to projects that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems.

X Prize Foundation

Energy & Environment, Education & Global Development.

An X PRIZE is a large-scale, monetary award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to positively impact humanity. So rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirit.

Zayed Future Energy Prize

Climate Change, Energy Security, Environment

The Zayed Future Energy Prize represents the vision of the Late Founding Father and President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, who championed environmental stewardship.

Prizes for Ideas