Friday, October 19, 2018

XPRIZE Foundation Names Anousheh Ansari As New CEO

Los Angeles-based nonprofit XPRIZE, which operates a number of sponsored "challenge" prizes aimed at solving some of humanity's greatest challenges, has named Anousheh Ansari as its new CEO. Current CEO and founder Dr. Peter H. Diamandis continues as Executive Chairman. Ansari, who is a tech entrepreneur, is best known as for her private ride to space on a Russian Soyuz, which made her the first private female to visit space as a tourist. Ansari and her family were behind the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10M competition aimed at spurring the development of commercial spaceflight. Ansari also has been on XPRIZE's Board of Directors since then. Ansari was most recently CEO of Prodea Systems, a developer of Internet of Things (IoT) products, where she remains as Executive Chairwoman. XPRIZE has a number of existing challenges, including the $20M NRG Cosio Carbon X PRIZE aimed at carbon capture technology; the $10M ANA Avatar X PRIZE focused on developing avatar technology; the $5M IBM Watson X PRIZE focused on developing artificial intelligence technology, among many others.