Implementation of Federal Prize Authority:
Fiscal Year 2012 Progress Report
A Report from the
Office of Science and Technology Policy
In Response to the Requirements of theAmerica COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010
December 2013

ABOUT THE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICYThe Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) advises the President on the effects
of science and technology on domestic and international affairs. The office serves as asource of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President withrespect to major policies, plans, and programs of the Federal government. OSTP leads
an interagency effort to develop and implement sound science and technology policies
and budgets. The office works with the private sector to ensure Federal investments inscience and technology contribute to economic prosperity, environmental quality, andnational security. For more information, visit http://www.ostp.gov.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATIONThis document is a work of the U.S. Government and is in the public domain (see 17
U.S.C. 105).

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DEPARTMENT, AGENCY, OFFICE, AND DIVISION ABBREVIATIONS
AF
AFRL
CDC
CMS
DARPA
DOC
DOD
DOE
DOL
EPA
EERE
FDA
GSA
HHS
NASA
NIBIB
NIEHS
NIST
NIH
NOAA
ODPHP
OMB
ONC
OPM
OSTP
SBA
USAID
USPTO

Air Force (part of DOD)
Air Force Research Laboratory (part of AF/DOD)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (part of HHS)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (part of HHS)
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (part of DOD)
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
Department of Energy
Department of Labor
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (part of DOE)
Food and Drug Administration
General Services Administration
Department of Health and Human Services
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (partof NIH/HHS)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of
NIH/HHS)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (part of DOC)
National Institutes of Health (part of HHS)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (part of DOC)
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (part of HHS)
Office of Management and Budget
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information
Technology (part of HHS)
Office of Personnel Management
Office of Science and Technology Policy
Small Business Administration
U.S. Agency for International Development
United States Patent and Trademark Office (part of DOC)

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TABLE OF CONTENTSEXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 7
1.

BENEFITS OF PRIZES IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR ........................................................................... 82.

SUPPORT FOR SCALING THE USE OF PRIZES .......................................................................... 113.

HIGHLIGHTS AND TRENDS FROM PRIZES CONDUCTED UNDER COMPETES IN FY 2012 ................. 15

CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 22
APPENDIX 1: AGENCY PROGRAMS CONDUCTED UNDER THE AMERICA COMPETES REAUTHORIZATIONACT OF 2010 ........................................................................................................................ 23
APPENDIX 2: AGENCY PROGRAMS CONDUCTED UNDER AUTHORITIES OTHER THAN THE AMERICACOMPETES REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2010 ........................................................................... 80

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed into the law the America COMPETES
Reauthorization Act (COMPETES), granting all agencies broad authority to conduct prize
competitions to spur innovation, solve tough problems, and advance their core
missions.
Prizes have an established track record of spurring innovation in the private andphilanthropic sectors. This report details examples of how well-designed prizes
integrated into a broader innovation strategy have enabled Federal agencies to:•
Pay only for success and establish an ambitious goal without having topredict which team or approach is most likely to succeed;•
Reach beyond the “usual suspects” to increase the number of solvers tacklinga problem and to identify novel approaches, without bearing high levels of
risk;•
Bring out-of-discipline perspectives to bear; and•Increase cost-effectiveness to maximize the return on taxpayer dollars.
The Obama Administration has taken important steps to make prizes a standard tool inevery agency’s toolbox. The September 2009 Strategy for American Innovation1
recognized the potential for prizes to mobilize America’s ingenuity to solve some of the
Nation’s most pressing challenges. In March 2010, the Office of Management andBudget (OMB) issued a formal policy framework2 to guide agency leaders in using prizes
to advance their core missions. In September 2010, the Administration launched
Challenge.gov3, a one-stop shop where entrepreneurs and citizen solvers can findpublic-sector prizes. By September 2012, Challenge.gov had featured more than 200
competitions from over 45 Federal agencies, departments, and bureaus.4
The prize authority in COMPETES supports this effort. By giving agencies a clear legal
path, the legislation makes it dramatically easier for agencies to use prizes. By
significantly expanding the authority of all Federal agencies to conduct prize
competitions, the legislation enables agencies to pursue more ambitious prizes withrobust incentives.
Since the signing of the Act in January 2011, the Administration has laid the policy andlegal groundwork to take maximum advantage of the new prize authority in the years tocome. Policy and legal staff in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and1 http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovation/strategy andhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/innovationstrategy-prizes.pdf
2 http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-11.pdf
3 http://www.challenge.gov/
4 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/05/challengegov-two-years-and-200-prizes-later

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OMB jointly developed a Fact Sheet and Frequently Asked Questions memorandum5,
issued in August 2011, which provided guidance to help streamline implementation of
the new, government-wide authority.
Agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) have established strategies and policies tofurther accelerate widespread use of the new prize authority granted to them through
COMPETES. Some agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have personnel
dedicated to lead prize design and administration efforts at their agencies and toprovide internal support to program managers interested in making use of prizes.
As many agencies expand their use of the authorities provided to them under
COMPETES, some agencies have continued to administer prizes and challenges
developed under other pre-existing authorities, including agency-specific authorities,
grant-making authority, and procurement authority, such as that provided by theFederal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), adding additional lessons learned and bestpractices regarding the use of prizes and challenges.
In addition, as called for in Section 24(n) of the Act, the General Services Administration(GSA) launched in July 2011 a contract vehicle6 to dramatically decrease the amount oftime required for agencies to tap the private-sector expertise that is so critical to early
success. In Fiscal Year 2012 (FY 2012), agencies initiated their use of this contract
vehicle. Adding to the support for the use of prizes, a government-wide Center of
Excellence, led by NASA, provided multiple agencies support for the full lifecycle of pilot
prize competitions: from design, through implementation, to post-prize evaluation.
The authority provided in COMPETES led to significant new efforts applying prizes tonational priority areas including energy, health, and employment. In FY 2012, 27 prizes
were conducted under this authority, compared to seven conducted from JanuarySeptember 2011. Seven agencies including EPA, Department of Commerce (DOC),
Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
Department of Labor (DOL), Department of State, and the Small Business Administration(SBA) each launched prizes in FY 2012 enabled by the COMPETES authority. This look at
the expanded use of the COMPETES prize authority in FY 2012, the first full fiscal year of

5 https://cio.gov/wp-

content/uploads/downloads/2012/09/Prize_Authority_in_the_America_COMPETES_Reauthoriz
ation_Act.pdf
6

http://www.gsaelibrary.gsa.gov/ElibMain/sinDetails.do?scheduleNumber=541&specialItemNum
ber=541+4G&executeQuery=YES

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implementation of that authority, indicates the ways this authority will continue to help
agencies across the Federal government reap the benefits of high-impact prizes.

INTRODUCTION
From the 1714 Longitude Prize that stimulated the development of the world’s firstpractical method to determine a ship’s longitude, to the Orteig Prize that inspired
Charles Lindbergh to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, to the 2011 Oil Cleanup X
Challenge7 awarded to a company from Illinois that demonstrated more than four times
the previous best tested recovery rate for cleaning up oil from the ocean’s surface,prizes have a long record of spurring innovation. A 2009 McKinsey report found thatphilanthropic and private-sector investment in prizes increased significantly in recent
years, including $250 million in new prize money between 2000 and 2007.8 Some ofthese incentive prizes included the GoldCorp Challenge9, the Ansari X Prize10, the Netflix
Prize11, and the Heritage Health Prize Competition12.
Inspired by the success of philanthropic and private-sector prizes, the Obama
Administration has taken important steps to accelerate public-sector adoption of these
innovative tools. The Strategy for American Innovation recognized the potential for
prizes and challenges to harness America’s ingenuity to solve some of the Nation’s mostpressing challenges.13 In March 2010, OMB issued a memorandum that provided a
policy framework to guide agency leaders in using prizes to advance core missions.14 In
September 2010, the Administration launched Challenge.gov, a one-stop shop whereentrepreneurs and citizen solvers can find and engage with public-sector prizes. By
September 2012, the site had hosted over 200 challenges posted by more than 45
departments and agencies. By that point, more than 16,000 citizen “solvers” hadparticipated in these competitions directly on Challenge.gov, with additional entrants
joining the competitions through other sources.15

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http://www.iprizecleanoceans.org/
McKinsey & Company, “And the Winner Is…”; Capturing the promise of philanthropic prizes,
2009, http://www.mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/SocialInnovation/And_the_winner_is.pdf
9Fast Company, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/59/mcewen.html
10
http://space.xprize.org/ansari-x-prize
11
http://www.netflixprize.com/
12
http://www.heritagehealthprize.com/c/hhp
13
http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovation/strategy
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/innovationstrategy-prizes.pdf
14
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-11.pdf
15 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/05/challengegov-two-years-and-200-prizes-later
87

On January 4, 2011, President Obama signed Public Law 111-358, the America
COMPETES Reauthorization Act. Section 105 of this Act added section 24 (Prize
Competitions) to the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 to provide
all agencies broad authority to conduct prize competitions in order to spur innovation,
solve tough problems, and advance their core missions. By giving agencies a simple andclear legal path, the Act supports the Administration’s effort to make prizes a standard
tool in every Federal agency’s toolbox.
The Act also requires OSTP to annually submit to the Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Science and Technology of theHouse of Representatives a report on the activities carried out under the new prize
authority during the preceding fiscal year.
This report documents the benefits the Federal government has already reaped fromusing incentive prizes, the steps the Administration has taken to establish a lasting
foundation for use of the COMPETES prize authority, and detailed examples from FY
2012 of how the COMPETES prize authority is increasing the number of agencies thatuse prizes to achieve their missions more efficiently and effectively.
This scope of this report includes an overview of every prize conducted under the
COMPETES prize authority in FY 2012 (as reported by Federal agencies to OSTP) andonly selectively covers prizes conducted under other authorities available to agencies
beyond the authority provided to agencies within COMPETES.

1. BENEFITS OF PRIZES IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
The unique benefits of prizes have been well documented in the private andphilanthropic sectors.16 Early adopters in the public sector have begun to reap therewards of well-designed prizes over the last several years. For example, NASA’s Chief
Technologist Mason Peck reports that “NASA recognizes the extraordinary opportunitythat prize competitions represent: that they can inspire the development oftransformative technologies by offering a means to engage with non-traditional sourcesof innovative ideas, all in a remarkably cost-effective way.”17 Specifically, prizes haveenabled the Federal government to:16

See e.g., McKinsey & Company, “And the Winner Is…”; Capturing the promise of philanthropic
prizes, 2009, http://www.mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/SocialInnovation/And_the_winner_is.pdf
17 NASA Report to Office of Science and Technology Policy on Prize Competitions for Fiscal Year2012, submitted by Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technology Officer, to the Office of Science andTechnology Policy, December 31, 20128

Pay only for success and establish an ambitious goal without having to predict
which team or approach is most likely to succeed. Contracts and grants areawarded based on proposals for future work, forcing agencies to assess merit
based on past performance at the expense of disruptive innovation. With a focus
on proven results, prizes empower new, untapped talent to deliver unexpected
solutions to tough problems.
For example, the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge,18 which
was awarded in October 2011 and supported by technical expertise from the
Department of Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), inspired teams of entrepreneurs, engineers, andscientists worldwide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable, and highly
efficient methods of cleaning up oil spills from the ocean surface. The winner,
Elastec/American Marine – a growing Illinois-based manufacturer of oil spill andenvironmental equipment that uses local talent for nearly all its fabrication –recovered oil at a rate nearly four times the best previously recorded incontrolled conditions. This significant advance, which involved grooved, highsurface-area spinning discs that grab large amounts of oil while leaving water
behind, is all the more exciting given the potential for the novel mechanicalsolution to have a real impact on the industry. The competition judges were
impressed by entrants’ attention to real-world applications, ease of deployment,
and consistency of performance in varied conditions. While the prize itself was
privately funded, by bringing technical expertise to bear in the competition
judging, the Department of Interior and NOAA advanced important shared goals,
stimulated the development of new tools that can be brought to bear in future
oil spills, and generated a treasure trove of data by testing novel technologies
under controlled conditions.



Reach beyond the “usual suspects” to increase the number of solvers tackling aproblem and to identify novel approaches, without bearing high levels of risk.
As Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy once famously said, “No matter who
you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” Prizes are one
tool to tap the top talent and best ideas wherever they lie, sourcing
breakthroughs from a broad pool of both known and unknown sources ofinnovation in a given industry. As solutions are delivered prior to payment, thegovernment can benefit from these novel approaches without bearing highlevels of risk.
In a survey of the nearly 3,000 solvers that competed in seven NASA prizes, 81%
reported that they had never before responded to a government request for18

http://www.iprizecleanoceans.org/

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proposals, let alone worked with NASA,19 evidence of the expanded talent poolthat prizes can attract.
In FY 2012, the U.S. Census Bureau conducted a prize competition20 thatchallenged statisticians, mathematicians, and other data scientists to analyze
Census data in order to create a statistical model to predict Decennial Census
mail return rates at the Census block group level of geography. In order toimprove the response rate in the future, Census planners need to develop
appropriate strategies to gain the greatest amount of respondent cooperationfor efficient data collection. The winning teams’ models used statisticalmethods not previously utilized by the agency. As a result of the competition,
the Census Bureau will pursue this promising technique. In addition, thechallenge introduced the Census Planning Database to a new anddiverse audience of data users, such as software engineers and university
students focusing in information sciences and technology. The results of thisprize competition will be used in modeling for the decennial census anddemographic sample surveys.


Bring out-of-discipline perspectives to bear. Empirical research conducted at
the Harvard Business School has found that breakthrough solutions are most
likely to come from outside the scientific discipline or at the intersection of two
fields of study.21
Following the success of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) Urban Challenge that demonstrated dramatic leaps forward in thecapabilities of autonomous vehicles, DARPA’s Shredder Challenge called upon
computer scientists and puzzle enthusiasts to compete for up to $50,000 by
piecing together a series of shredded documents. The prize’s goal was to identify
and assess potential capabilities that could be used by U.S. warfighters operatingin war zones, but that might also create vulnerabilities related to sensitive
information that is protected through our own shredding practices throughout
the U.S. national security community. Almost 9,000 teams registered toparticipate in DARPA's Shredder Challenge and 33 days after the challenge wasannounced, one small San Francisco-based team correctly solved the puzzles.
The winning team spent nearly 600 person-hours developing algorithms andpiecing together documents that were shredded into more than 10,000 pieces.

19

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/572344main_InnoCentive_NASA_PublicReport_2011-0422.pdf
http://www.kaggle.com/c/us-census-challenge
21
Jeppesen, Lars Bo, and Karim R. Lakhani. "Marginality and Problem-Solving Effectiveness in
Broadcast Search." Organization Science 21 (September - October 2010): 1016-1033.
20

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DARPA stated that experts had been skeptical that a solution could be produced
at all, let alone in such a short time frame.22


Increase cost-effectiveness to maximize the return on taxpayer dollars. As
teams compete not just for the cash purse, but also for the associated validation,
prestige, and satisfaction that results from solving important problems, prizes
incent significant additional private-sector and philanthropic investment,leveraging the prize purse’s impact. In the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindberghin 1927, nine teams spent a cumulative $400,000 to win the $25,000 prize
purse.23 More recently, the Ansari X PRIZE was won in 2004 by Burt Rutan andSpaceShipOne, after the 26 competing teams spent more than $100 million to
win the prize.24

Prizes for open innovation offer these benefits, as well as numerous other advantages,
such as the ability of prizes to inspire risk-taking by offering a level playing field throughcredible rules and robust judging mechanisms; to give entrepreneurs and innovators
license to pursue an endorsed stretch goal that otherwise would have been considered
overly audacious; and to establish clear success metrics and validation protocols thatthemselves become defining tools for the subject industry or field.
Of course, prizes are not the right tool for every problem. However, prizes can be a
powerful mechanism if used strategically and systematically within an agency and whenaligned with a broader strategy for spurring innovation and change. The COMPETES
prize authority plays a critical role in unleashing that potential.

2. SUPPORT FOR SCALING THE USE OF PRIZES
Since 2009, the Obama Administration has taken important steps that are helping toscale the successful use of prizes and challenges across the entire Executive Branch. The
COMPETES prize authority plays a critical role in the Administration’s work to makeprizes a standard tool in every agency’s toolbox by granting clear, broad authority to all
Federal agencies.
In FY 2012, Federal agencies were heterogeneous in their adoption of prizes as an open
innovation tool. Some agencies, such as NASA (which continued operations of or newly

22 www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2011/12/02_.aspx
23 http://www.innovationinthecrowd.com/examples/orteig-prize.pdf
24 http://space.xprize.org/ansari-x-prize11

announced over a dozen prizes in FY 2012 under various authorities)25, DOE, andDepartment of Defense (DOD) have a long track record of using prizes due to preexisting agency authorities. Other agencies were early adopters of the COMPETES prize
authority in FY 2011 and scaled these activities in FY 2012, such as HHS which scaled its
prize activity from two prize programs under COMPETES authority in FY 2011 to 18
prizes under COMPETES authority in FY 2012.26 Some agencies, such as the Census
Bureau at DOC, offered their first prize in FY 2012, enabled by the COMPETES authority.
Other agencies have yet to conduct a prize and are planning for prizes in future years.
The Administration has laid the policy and legal groundwork to take maximum
advantage of the new authority in the years to come. Support for agencies in all stagesof experience with prize design and administration includes:Fact Sheet and Frequently Asked Questions: Policy and legal staff in OSTP and
OMB jointly developed a Fact Sheet and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
memorandum, which was issued in August 2011.27 The Fact Sheet offered policy
and programmatic staff a concise summary of the legislation’s authorities andrequirements and provided informal guidance to agencies in theirimplementation of the prize authority found in this legislation. To streamline andaccelerate implementation of the new, government-wide authority, the FAQ
addressed the questions most frequently raised by agency personnel, including
general counsels, and thereby helped empower agencies to take advantage ofthe authorities in COMPETES, including the authority to conduct prizes up to $50
million with existing appropriations; to accept private sector funds for thedesign, administration, or prize purse of a competition; to partner with nonprofits and tap the expertise of for-profits for successful implementation; and toco-sponsor with another agency.

Agency Implementation Guidance: Following on the August 2011 Fact Sheet and
FAQ, and through OSTP’s support, agencies have begun to establish strategies
and policies to further accelerate widespread use of the new prize authority
granted to them under COMPETES. HHS has been at the forefront of agency

25 NASA Report to Office of Science and Technology Policy on Prize Competitions for Fiscal Year2012, submitted by Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technology Officer, to the Office of Science andTechnology Policy, December 31, 2012
26 HHS Reports on Prize Competition Activities Conducted in Fiscal Year 2012, submitted by
Bryan Sivak, HHS Chief Technology Officer, and E.J. Holland Jr., HHS Assistant Secretary for
Administration, to Dr. John P. Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy,
December 31, 201227
Prize Authority in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act:
http://www.cio.gov/documents/Prize%20Authority%20in%20the%20America%20COMPETES%2
0Reauthorization%20Act.pdf

12

implementation efforts. On October 12, 2011, Secretary Sebelius issued amemorandum notifying the Department of the new COMPETES prize authority,
outlining the strategy to optimize the use of prize competitions, and calling on
the heads of operating and staff divisions to forecast their future use of prize
competitions to stimulate innovation in advancing the agency’s mission. The
memorandum also highlighted the implementation framework established toaccelerate the use of well-designed prizes. For example, Secretary Sebeliusdelegated the authority to conduct prize competitions to the Heads of all
Operating and Staff Divisions. The Department also developed judging
guidelines, governing principles outlining responsibilities for prize managers, afinancial management policy for prize competitions, and a vehicle to share bestpractices across the Department. The full set of policy statements, guidance, andresources are available online. 28 Other agencies, including EPA, followed HHS’s
example in FY 2012, establishing agency-wide guidance for prizes conductedunder the COMPETES authority.
Agencies such as NASA and USAID have dedicated personnel available to provide
prize design and implementation assistance to other parts of the agency. For
example, NASA reports that in FY 2012, the agency created and filled a newposition, the Prizes and Challenges Program Executive within the Office of the
Chief Technologist, to coordinate prize strategy for the Agency as a whole.29
Additional agencies are now engaging actively in similar internal review andplanning related to the prize authority granted under COMPETES.


28

General Services Administration Assistance: Section 24(n) of COMPETES calledon the GSA to “develop a contract vehicle to provide agencies relevant products
and services, including technical assistance in structuring and conducting prize
competitions to take maximum benefit of the marketplace as they identify andpursue prize competitions to further the policy objectives of the Federal
Government.” In response, GSA launched Sub-Schedule 541 4G, “Challenges andCompetitions Services”30 in July of 2011, thereby dramatically decreasing theamount of time required for agencies to tap the private sector expertise that isso critical to early success. To date, 15 contractors have joined Sub-Schedule 541
4G, offering agencies options for technical assistance, prize platforms, andcommunities of individuals and teams interested in entering prize competitions.

http://www.hhs.gov/open/initiatives/challenges/

29 NASA Report to Office of Science and Technology Policy on Prize Competitions for Fiscal Year2012, submitted by Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technology Officer, to the Office of Science andTechnology Policy, December 31, 201230

http://www.gsaelibrary.gsa.gov/ElibMain/sinDetails.do?scheduleNumber=541&specialItemNum
ber=541+4G&executeQuery=YES

13

In FY 2012, the Sub-Schedule was used for the first time by Federal agencies,
with increased used planned for in Fiscal Year 2013 (FY 2013). GSA continues toinform private-sector vendors and agencies about the schedule and its benefits
and assist agencies in taking advantage of the available services.


Government-wide Center of Excellence: In 2011, the Administration launched agovernment-wide Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (COECI) led
by NASA to provide agencies guidance on all aspects of implementing prize
competitions: from problem definition, to design of effective monetary and nonmonetary incentives, to post-submission evaluation of solutions. From theCentennial Challenges Program, to the NASA Open Innovation Pavilion, to theNASA Tournament Lab, NASA is a public-sector leader with breadth and depth ofexperience and experimentation with prizes and challenges. Through COECI,
NASA leverages that expertise across all NASA centers and directorates and helps
other Federal agencies follow in its footsteps. For select agency pilots conducted
through inter-agency agreements or through informal support, COECI leverages
existing NASA open innovation infrastructure to provide a full suite of services —from prize design, through implementation, to post-prize evaluation — allowing
agencies to rapidly experiment with these new methods before standing up theirown capabilities. In addition, COECI captures and communicates best practices,
case studies, and successful methodologies.
In FY 2012, COECI executed Interagency Agreements with the U.S. Patent andTrademark Office (USPTO), HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services(CMS), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and USAID. USPTO, CMS,
and OPM launched application development challenges on the TopCoderplatform using NASA’s contract with Harvard University. USAID launched two
idea generation challenges on the InnoCentive platform leveraging NASA’s
external crowdsourcing contract vehicle to advance their Tech Challenge forAtrocity Prevention,31 a partnership with Humanity United. In addition, COECI
also provided informal guidance to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA)
Center for Tobacco Products, DOE, and the National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST), among other agencies.

Training and Capturing Best Practices: OSTP, GSA, and COECI collaborated on avariety of training and educational activities in FY 2012 to assist a growing
community practices of public-sector prize administrators to capture and share
best practices and lessons learned in prize design and administration. GSA offers
learning resources about prizes online at HowTo.gov.32 OSTP, GSA, and COECI
offered Federal agency prize administrators training events and webinars as well.

31 http://thetechchallenge.org/
32 http://www.howto.gov/challenges

14

For example, in June 2012, OSTP, the Case Foundation, the Joyce Foundation,
and COECI co-hosted the Collaborative Innovation summit on the use of publicsector prizes to spur innovation in the Federal government. The cross-sector
event brought together hundreds of Federal employees and their private-sector
and philanthropic partners and counterparts and featured informative
discussions with Administration officials, private-sector representatives, andFederal agencies that have conducted successful prize programs. The event
resulted in a large amount of case studies and video resources available online.33
As agencies expanded their use of the clear and broad authorities provided to themunder COMPETES in FY 2012, numerous public-sector prizes and challenges continued tobe administered under other pre-existing authorities including agency-specificauthorities; procurement authority such as that provided by the Federal Acquisition
Regulation (FAR); the authority to award grants, participate in cooperative agreements,
or both; and authority related to “necessary expense” doctrine, among others. These
prizes add additional lessons learned and best practices to the growing community ofpractice engaged in public-sector prizes and challenges.
In FY 2013, as agencies complete their internal policies and strategies related to theimplementation of programs under COMPETES; as more resources for related training ofagency personnel and for the development, implementation, and promotion ofchallenges become available to agencies through GSA; and as COECI continues toprovide support for pilot programs at other agencies, the use of the COMPETES prize
authority will continue to increase, resulting in highly leveraged open innovation
programs that help agencies address grand challenges and address needs in meeting
their agency mission. Section 3 and Appendix 1 of this report will focus on the prizes
developed under the specific prize authority provided by COMPETES. Appendix 2 will
provide a brief summary of some prizes conducted under authorities, though this report
is not comprehensive, as agency reporting to OSTP on prizes under authorities otherthan COMPETES is voluntary.

3. HIGHLIGHTS AND TRENDS FROM PRIZES CONDUCTED UNDER COMPETES IN FY
2012
Aided by the policy and legal framework and support for implementation of the newprize authority under COMPETES described in Section 2, agencies expanded their use ofprizes conducted under that authority, with 27 prizes offered by seven agencies in FY
2012. These competitions provide evidence for how the COMPETES authority is helping
agencies across the Federal government reap the benefits discussed earlier and topromote positive innovation and breakthroughs in national priority areas such as health,
33 http://casefoundation.org/collaborative-innovation15

energy, and employment. A summary of the highlights of FY 2012 activity under
COMPETES is provided here.34
Driving Innovation in Health IT and Public Health Education
HHS emerged as a leader in implementing prize programs under the COMPETES
authority in FY 2012, offering 18 prizes and challenges over the year. Four HHS agencies
conducted prize competitions in FY2012, including the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, National Institutes of Health, and Office of the Secretary. In HHS’s FY 2012
report on use of COMPETES submitted to OSTP, HHS Chief Technology Officer Bryan
Sivak and HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration E.J. Holland reported that theseagencies found “prize competitions to be beneficial for advancing the mission of theagency and the primary objective of the challenge.” HHS agencies made active use of
the COMPETES authority to engage in partnerships to support prize funding andadministration – in fact, 15 of the 18 FY 2012 competitions utilized partnerships with theprivate sector, academia, other federal agencies, or the non-profit sector to support
aspects of the challenges, including publicity, funding and fundraising, technology andtechnical support, and subject matter expertise.
Investing in Innovation (i2)The HHS Investing in Innovation (i2) initiative, announced in FY 2011, is a $5 million
program to spur innovations in Health Information Technology (Health IT). Led by the
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), the core of
the $5 million i2 program is a series of prize competitions – up to 15 each year – toaccelerate innovation and adoption of Health Information Technology (Health IT) for
improved clinical outcomes and efficient care delivery. ONC and its partners
administered seven challenges through the i2 program in FY 2012.
My Air, My Health Challenge
One of the HHS ONC i2 challenges was conducted in partnership with the EPA and the
National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences (NIEHS): the “My Air, My Health
Challenge.”35 Environment and public health are closely related and complementary
fields — and their future depends on a closer understanding of those connections. New
portable sensors have the potential to transform the way Federal agencies and theprivate sector measure and interpret the influence of pollution on health. These
technologies can provide a picture that is detailed and personal, with dramatic
implications for health care, air quality oversight, and individuals’ control over their own
environments and health. The EPA and HHS envision a future in which powerful,
34
35

See the Appendix for a detailed account of all FY 2012 activities under COMPETES.
https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9932947

16affordable, and portable sensors provide a rich awareness of environmental quality,
moment-to-moment physiological changes, and long-term health outcomes. Healthcare
will be connected to the whole environment, improving diagnosis, treatment, andprevention at all levels. Many of the first steps toward this future have already beentaken. Prototype projects have developed portable air quality and physiologic sensors,and experimental analysis tools for handling data that is higher in quantity, but often
lower in quality, than more traditional monitoring techniques. The “My Air, My Health
Challenge” was designed to build on this foundation. Challenge organizers sought
solutions that integrate data from portable physiological and air quality monitors,
producing a combined picture that is meaningful and usable.
The challenge was a multidisciplinary call to innovators and software developers toenable near real time, location-specific monitoring and reporting of air pollutants andpotentially related physiological parameters, using a personal and portable integrated
system to assess connections between the two. The system needed to link air-pollutant
concentrations with physiological data, provide geo-coded and time-stamped files in aneasy-to-use format, and transmit this data via existing networks to a central datarepository provided by EPA and HHS.
The challenge was an integral part of the joint effort by HHS and EPA to find nextgeneration solutions in the area of environmental and health sensor technologies andexploring the interaction of environment and health through granular, near-real-timedata collection. Grants or contracts were not appropriate because the agencies sought avariety of different ideas rather than having to select one approach based only on a
proposal. In addition, the challenge afforded opportunities to communicate both
agencies’ interest in this topic to encourage private-sector research and development.
Phase 1 of the competition was still open as of the close of FY 2012. Full competition
results will be reported in the FY 2013 report to Congress. The challenge stimulated
interest in the topic from a wide range of individuals and institutions including large
companies, universities, athletics suppliers, and lone innovators. This demonstrates thatthe challenge mechanism is a viable platform for agency collaboration around a topic of
mutual interest. The creation of the actual prototypes based on the finalists’ proposals
will be a key component in evaluating the success of the challenge.
Reducing Hospital Readmissions for Patients
Another ONC i2 challenge36 asked software developers to create an easy-to-use webbased tool to make post-discharge follow-up appointment scheduling an effective
process for care providers, patients, and caregivers. Nearly one in five patients from a36

http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/discharge-follow-up-appointment-challenge/17

hospital will be readmitted within 30 days. A large proportion of readmissions can beprevented by improving communications and coordinating care before and after
discharge from the hospital.
Research has shown that scheduling follow-up appointments and post-discharge testing
before a patient is discharged is one of the critical elements of a safe and effective
transition. Most patients across the country continue to leave the hospital without
confirmed appointments and many providers remain frustrated by a highly manual andunreliable system. A growing number of innovative consumer-facing tools are becoming
available for patients and care givers to schedule appointments and rate providers.
However, these tools have not yet reached high levels of adoption within communities,
and to date have not targeted the appointment scheduling needs of patients, caregivers,
and providers at the point of discharge from a hospital.
Entrants to the challenge were asked to integrate inpatient data effectively and provide
structured support for self-care; integrate design and usability concepts to drive patientand provider adoption and engagement; demonstrate innovative uses of mobile
technologies; and demonstrate potential to improve health outcomes.
Entrants submitted numerous new easy-to-use tools37 that have the potential to reduce
patient readmissions through effective appointment scheduling, leading to improved
patient health and reduced health care costs. The top submissions included easy-to-use,
synchronized scheduling tools for providers, consumers, and caretakers while also
providing assorted other functionalities that appeal to different types of stakeholders,
including integration with multi-purpose patient portals, appointment transportation
coordination, and automated reminders. The winning application, MyHealthDIRECT, is a
web-based solution that effectively matches the demand for health care appointmentswith a supply of actual appointment slots.
Engaging Citizen Solvers in Energy Challenges
DOE offered several competitions in FY 2012 that challenged citizens and business tocreate innovative new solutions to clean energy challenges.
Apps for Energy
DOE’s Apps for Energy competition offered $100,000 in prizes to software developers
for the best new applications (apps) that help utility customers make the most out of
their Green Button electricity usage data. Green Button is an open standard for sharing
electricity data that is available to millions of utility customers, and combining Green
Button data with other public data sources can help homeowners and businesses take37 http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/discharge-follow-up-appointment-challenge/18

action, understand energy usage, and make better-informed decisions. This competition
sought to inspire innovative use of Green Button data, and a prize allowed DOE toleverage private-sector effort without predefining or limiting the solution set.
Additionally, competitions have an existing following among the community of
independent software developers, a key target community for DOE’s goal of creating anactive energy–focused developer community. Finally, the competition provided an
opportunity to raise awareness of the existence and value of Green Button data.
The competition resulted in more than 50 submissions, and the discussion boards on
Challenge.gov were heavily used during the competition, both indications of the
beginning of an active developer community. Additionally, the winning apps show three
diverse and valuable approaches to using Green Button data and two of the three top
apps have either been used to found a company or have since been acquired by anothercompany. An established company that was making its first foray into using Green
Button data submitted the third app. The competition itself attracted over 12,000
followers.
DOE challenge organizers partnered formally with private-sector companies GRID21,
PG&E, and Itron to sponsor the prize purse. These partners provided monetary andmarketing and outreach support. Challenge organizers partnered informally with a great
number of organizations to improve their outreach abilities, including the App
Developers Alliance, Code for America, Innocentive, EPA, DOC, and various educationalorganizations.
SunShot Prize: Race to the Rooftops
In September 2012, DOE launched an audacious new market stimulation prize insupport of the goals of its SunShot Grand Challenge, which aims to make solar
competitive with fossil fuels by the end of the decade. The $10 million SunShot Prize38
challenges the ingenuity of America’s businesses and communities to make it faster,easier, and cheaper to install rooftop solar energy systems. Successful competitors will
deploy at least 6,000 new rooftop photovoltaic installations in the U.S. at an average
pre-subsidy non-hardware cost of $1 per watt. Winners will break this significant pricebarrier, considered to be unachievable a decade ago, and prove that they canrepeatedly achieve a $1 per watt non-hardware cost using innovative, verifiable
processes and business practices. The winners of the first phase of the competition will
be announced in FY 2015 with cash awards likely to be made in 2016.
Despite unprecedented cost reductions for solar hardware over recent years, the total
price to install and commission residential and small-commercial scale solar energy
systems remains high. Designing and implementing practices that enable dramatic38

http://challenge.gov/DOE/410-sunshot-prize19

reductions in the associated non-hardware costs of solar is now the greatest challenge
to achieving national targets for attaining cost-competitive solar by 2020.
DOE has three main goals for Race to the Rooftops challenge:

Affordability: Improve the affordability of residential and small commercial
rooftop solar systems by breaking a significant price barrier for non-hardware
costs, considered impossible a decade ago. Hardware costs have fallen morethan 75% since 2008, the non-hardware costs have not made as significant of anadvance. The goal of this prize is to help the community achieve lower all in costs
to the consumer by cutting through much of the red tape.



Solar Market Maturity: Inspire U.S. businesses and communities to create theright market conditions for growth and job creation.

Subsidy Independence: Help the private sector transition to post-subsidy market
while maintaining strong growth and resilience.

DOE has partnered formally with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at
State University of New York at Albany, to promote and provide ongoing outreachactivities for the prize. Based on the feedback, inquires, and comments received to date,challenge organizers think there is a great interest in the solar community in this newmarket stimulation prize.
New Solutions for Entrepreneurs, Job-Seekers, and Small Businesses
DOL and SBA offered competitions to create applications that would leverage open
government data and benefit entrepreneurs, job-seekers, and small businesses. Twoapps challenges from DOL are summarized here.
Equal Pay App Challenge
Through the Equal Pay App Challenge, the National Equal Pay Task Force and DOL
engaged innovators, educators, and IT developers to help build innovative tools to
educate the public about the gender pay gap and promote equal pay for women. Nearly
50 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, women are still paid lessthan their male counterparts for doing comparable jobs. This pay gap means that eachtime the average woman starts a new job, she is likely to start from a lower base salary,
and that, over time, the pay gap between her and her male colleagues is likely to grow.
For the average working woman, the pay gap means she will receive $150 less in her
weekly paycheck, $8,000 less at the end of the year, and $380,000 less over her lifetime.
For women of color and women with disabilities, the disparity is even bigger.
Through the challenge, DOL engaged leaders in academia, non-profit organizations,industry innovators, IT professionals, and other equal pay supporters to use publicly

20

available labor data and other online resources to educate users about the pay gap anddevelop tools to promote equal pay. DOL’s four primary goals were to provide greater
access to pay data by gender, race, and ethnicity; provide tools for early careercoaching; improve education on negotiation; and promote online mentoring. Private
sector partners for the challenge included Women Innovate Mobile, Carnegie Mellon
University, Google, The Daily Muse, Salary.com, Interview Street, and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
The Equal Pay App Challenge on Challenge.gov advanced DOL’s mission by leveraging
existing program information, technology, and public innovation to raise awareness onequal pay and provide effective tools for employers and employees. The competition
amplified the Equal Pay Taskforce’s mission on wage equality by expanding the amountof quality online tools, effective messaging, and partnerships with non-traditional
stakeholders in the academic and digital spectrum. The competition was featured on
multiple media outlets including Forbes, The Daily Muse, New York Times, andSacramento Bee, in addition to other online publications and mainstream blogs.
Disability Employment App ChallengeThis challenge asked developers to help build innovative tools to improve employment
opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities. Nearly twenty-two years after
the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and thirty-nine years after thepassage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 – two of the most significant disability
employment-related pieces of legislation in American history – people with disabilities
continue to be employed at much lower levels than the general population. Not only dopeople with disabilities have a significantly higher unemployment rate than the general
population, they also have a much lower labor force participation rate. For minorities
with disabilities, these disparities are even greater. This represents a significant loss ofwilling and able talent to the American workforce, loss of income for people withoutjobs, and economic loss to the country. In this challenge, DOL leveraged technology ininnovative ways to promote recruitment resources for employers, develop job-training
and skill-building tools for job seekers, facilitate employment-related transportation
options, and expand web and Information Communication Technology accessibility.
Three category prizes were awarded for innovation, public voting, and accessibility:

Innovation Award Winner: Access Jobs is a job search portal specifically designed
for job seekers with disabilities. The website implements usable accessibility
techniques, such as responsive design, which allow the website to beexperienced in the same way across all platforms.



The People’s Choice Award Winner: VoisPal is an Android-based app designed tohelp people with speech difficulties.

21

Above and Beyond Accessibility Award Winner: Accelerated Dynamic Content:(AccDC) is a scalable, cross-browser, and cross-platform compatible Dynamic
Content Management System that automates the rendering of dynamic content
to ensure accessibility for screen reader and keyboard-only users.

CONCLUSION
Prizes have an impressive track record of spurring innovation in the private andphilanthropic sectors. More than 45 Federal agencies, departments, and bureaus
conducted over 200 prizes by September 2012, including 27 competitions conducted byseven agencies under the COMPETES prize authority in FY 2012. These agencies havereaped the rewards of well-designed prizes integrated into a broader innovation
strategy. The successes of these public-sector prizes show what can be expected from
more Federal agencies as they develop the expertise and capacity to use prizes
strategically and systematically to advance their core mission.
The COMPETES prize authority is a critical step toward making prizes a standard tool inevery agency’s toolbox. By expanding the authority of all Federal agencies to conduct
prize competitions and by giving agencies a clear legal path, the legislation makes it
easier for agencies to use prizes and enables agencies to pursue more ambitious prizes
with robust incentives.
The Administration has laid the policy and legal groundwork for agencies to continue totake advantage of the new prize authority in the years to come and has set up support
for agencies, such as training events and resources, GSA’s contact vehicle that decreases
the amount of time required for agencies to tap private sector expertise, and thegovernment-wide Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation through which NASAsupports the design and implementation of pilot prize programs for other Federal
agencies. A number of agencies have begun to establish specific strategies and policies
to further accelerate widespread use of the COMPETES prize authority throughout theirorganization.
As the Administration expands the foundation of support for the widespread use of the
COMPETES prize authority, prizes conducted under the authority unleashed significant
new activity in national priority areas such as energy, health, and employment.
Continued and increased use of the authority in the years to come will allow agencies
across the Federal government to reap the benefits of high-impact prizes for open
innovation in the years to come.

22

APPENDIX 1: AGENCY PROGRAMS CONDUCTED UNDER THE AMERICA COMPETESREAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2010
This Appendix provides a complete summary of all prizes and challenges conducted in FY
2012 under the prize authority provided to agencies in COMPETES and does not include
any of the multiple prize competitions conducted under other authorities in FY 2012 orprior.

LIST OF CHALLENGES
1. Department of Commerce
1.1.
Census Return Rate Challenge
2. Department of Energy
2.1.
National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition
2.2.
Apps for Energy
2.3.
SunShot Prize
3. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health and Human Services
3.1.
My Air, My Health Challenge
4. Department of Health and Human Services
4.1.
SMART-Indivo Challenge
4.2.
EHR Accessibility Module Challenge
4.3.
Discharge Follow-up Appointment Challenge
4.4.
Reporting Patient Safety Events Challenge
4.5.
popHealth Tool Development Challenge
4.6.
One in a Million Hearts Challenge
4.7.
What’s in your Health Record Video Challenge
4.8.
Managing Meds Video Challenge
4.9.
Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators App Challenge
4.10.
Beat Down Blood Pressure Video Challenge
4.11.
Health New Year Challenge
4.12.
Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (Debut) Challenge
4.13.
Now Trending: #Health in My Community
4.14.
2012 Surgeon General’s Video Contest: Tobacco – I’m Not Buying It
4.15.
Surgeon General’s Healthy Apps Challenge
4.16.
Seeing My World Through a Safer Lens Video Challenge
4.17.
Million Hearts Caregiver Video Challenge
5. Department of Labor
5.1.
Equal Pay App Challenge
5.2.
Disability Employment App Challenge
23

6. Department of State
6.1.
Innovation in Arms Control Challenge
7. Small Business Administration
7.1.
National Small Business Week Video Contest
7.2.
Apps for Entrepreneurs Competition

DETAILED CHALLENGE REPORTS
1. Department of Commerce
1.1. Census Return Rate Challenge
Overview: The U.S. Census Bureau conducted a prize competition that challenged
statisticians, mathematicians, and other data scientists to analyze Census data in orderto create a statistical model to predict Decennial Census mail return rates at the Census
block group level of geography. In order to improve the response rate in the future,
Census planners need to develop appropriate strategies to gain the greatest amount ofrespondent cooperation for efficient data collection. The results of this prize will be
used in modeling for the decennial census and demographic sample surveys.
Website:http://www.kaggle.com/c/us-census-challenge
Problem Statement: Over the last two decades, the Census Bureau has seen a decline incooperation rates with Decennial Censuses and ongoing surveys. The Census Bureau
conducted a prize competition capitalizing on the expertise of data scientists to improveupon or provide different methodologies in creating a predictive statistical model on
Census mail return rates that help the agency plan and design more efficient Censuses
and surveys. The Census Bureau provided participants with a public use statistical
dataset comprised of 2010 Census and the 5-year American Community Survey
estimates (the Census Planning Database). To succeed, models had to be successful, it
must have maintained accuracy in its predictions when tested by officials with avalidation dataset that was not available to the participants.
Goal: The competition’s primary objective was to obtain a better statistical model for
predicting return rates at the block group level. This predictive model aids Census
planners in better developing and improving upon strategies to contact and gain
respondent coordination for timely and efficient data collection.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The Census Bureau chose to conduct a prize
competition instead of utilizing other acquisition methods because the Kaggle online

24

platform provided the Bureau with a large variety of data scientists that would havebeen difficult to tap through traditional contract, grant, or cooperative agreement
approaches. Census wanted to move beyond the usual suspects and involve a large
variety of data scientists with varying levels of expertise to maximize innovation andreceive as many different methods and models as possible.
Participants: The competition targeted statisticians, mathematicians, and other data
scientists experienced in dealing with large amounts of data and statistical models.
Participation was open to all members of the Kaggle community who agreed to theterms and conditions set forth by the Census Bureau and Kaggle. There were 291 total
participants. Of these participants, 244 were teams ranging in size from one to four
members. Participants were located worldwide in countries including Australia, Czech
Republic, and India, as well as throughout the United States.
Timeline: On August 31, 2012, the competition launched and remained open throughNovember 1, 2012. A separate data visualization competition began on November 1,
2012 and lasted through November 11, 2012.
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Prior to the launch of the competition,
the Census Bureau widely advertised the upcoming competition in order to mobilize
potential participants. These efforts varied but included: Census Bureau personnel
creating and distributing flyers at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) of the American
Statistical Association’s annual conference in San Diego; announcing the competition at
a JSM roundtable luncheon and an invited session; creating a specialized web page andslider on the Census Bureau public facing website; a public announcement in the Federal
Register; and advertisement on the Kaggle website itself. The Census Bureau foundthese methods to be highly effective and was extremely pleased with the level ofparticipation received. The Census Bureau will utilize these same solicitation andoutreach methods in any similar, future outreach efforts.
Incentives: The total available prize money was $25,000 (first place $14,000, second
place $7,500, third place $2,500, and data visualization competition $1,000).
Evaluation: The Kaggle website’s Leaderboard kept track of each entrant’s score andcomparative rank based on the predicted results in the entry and ground truth of avalidation dataset. At the close of the competition, scores were calculated from thepredicted results and ground truth in the testing dataset. The Top 3 eligible entrants on
the Private Leaderboard were declared as the prize winners.
Resources: A team of three people at Census oversaw the competition.
Results: The competition advanced the mission of the Census Bureau in several ways.
First, the winning team's models used statistical methods not previously utilized by theagency. All three top models made use of a class of voting or committee method that25

fall under the heading of "Statistical Machine Learning" techniques. These methods
have a very high profile in statistics and are typically applied in computer science.
Census Bureau statisticians had not used this method before when modeling Census
mail return rates andas a result of the competition, the Census Bureau will pursue thispromising technique. Second, the challenge introduced the Census Planning Database to
a new and diverse audience of data users, such as software engineers and university
students focusing in information sciences and technology. Given these outcomes,
challenge organizers consider the challenge to have been a success and plan to study
and apply the winning model techniques and methods as they plan for Census 2020.

2. Department of Energy
2.1. National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition
Overview: The DOE’s National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition (NCEBPC) is
designed to build regional networks of student-focused business creation competitions
across the country. Six regional organizations hold clean energy business plancompetitions, and the competition culminates in the six regional winners competing for
a National Grand Prize of $100,000.
Website:http://techportal.eere.energy.gov/commercialization/natlbizplan.html
Problem Statement: The NCEBPC aims to inspire clean energy innovation across thecountry by creating businesses from best in-class technology research while inspiringand cultivating America’s next generation of entrepreneurs to drive those businesses
forward. Six regional DOE-funded business plan competitions send a finalist to
Washington, D.C. to compete for the Grand Prize in DOE’s National Competition.
All business plan proposals must fall within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy (EERE) mission and technology portfolio. DOE established guidelinesthat defined regional NCEBPC competitions. Regional competitions are encouraged tocommunicate and collaborate with other regional organizers in order expand network
connections.
As a program whose goals include the development of the next generation ofentrepreneurs, NCEBPC requires that students be highly involved in each competition’s
management and execution – at least 50% of any participating team’s team members
must be actively enrolled in an accredited U.S. university or college.
DOE promotes openness and transparency by requiring all competition entrants todisclose the status of all intellectual property (IP) used in the competitions.
Competitions must demonstrate an effort to cultivate and recruit business plans basedon technologies derived from U.S. universities or national labs. To ensure a level playing
field among business plan teams nationwide, all entrants must be early stage venture
26

investments and may not have equity capital totaling more than $200,000 prior to
selection of regional winners. Student members of the formal team must havecombined minimum equity of 20% of the company.
Goal: The DOE has created the NCEBPC and funded the regional competitions withseveral goals in mind:
 Inspire students to engage in clean energy entrepreneurship.
 Build regional networks through the competitions that create linkages between
technologists, academics, and investors.
 Enable the launch of innovative cleantech startups by providing seed funding and inkind services to young entrepreneurs.
 Advance clean energy technologies by engaging students, innovators, andtechnologists to bring innovative technologies to market.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The NCEBPC seeks to bridge the investor, technology,
and academic communities by inspiring cleantech entrepreneurship in students. By
working with the private sector, through in-kind sponsorships, cash prizes, and having
the business and investor community serve as judges and mentors, the competition
brings together the communities in a way that could not be done through a grant alone.
The DOE funded the regional competitions through a competitive grant solicitation;
however, each region must raise funds on their own to support the competitions. The
National Grand Prize, however, is solely funded by private-sector partners. The final
national phase brings together the regions.
Participants: The NCEBPC’s primary target audience is graduate and undergraduate
students in U.S. universities and colleges. The competition, through its six regions,
received 299 eligible submissions from teams in its first year. The six regional winners
participated in the National portion of the competition. Teams must go through theregional competition process in order to compete in the National Grand Prize.
Timeline: The NCEBPC was launched in 2011, with the inaugural competition taking
place in June of 2012. The grant is for three years for the regions; however, each region
must make their competition sustainable beyond the grant period. The DOE aims to
make the NCEBPC an annual event beyond 2014. For the applications, each regional
competition sets its own deadlines. Most of the applications are due between late
December and early March. Each competition must hold their final round of selection
for their winner by early May. The National Competition takes place in June. The 2012
Competition took place June 11-13, 2012 in Washington, DC.
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: The NCEBPC utilized many forms of
media to disseminate information about the prize. These included social media,
traditional press, http://energy.gov/ through the EERE and Secretary’s blog, andChallenge.gov. Each of the regions has their own outreach strategy as well. The DOE will27

be pairing up with more associations and other groups to disseminate information
about the National and regional competitions.
Incentives: The National Competition incentive is a $100,000 prize, provided by Wells
Fargo. For the 2012 Competition, the cash prize was distributed to the winning teamthrough the Clean Energy Alliance (CEA); the funds were not transferred to or throughDOE. Other prizes for the 2012 Competition included technical, analytical, and businesssupport selected and offered to help the teams after the competition to help themconnect to the investor communities, providing legal and advisory services, and givethem resources to expose their technology to the greater cleantech community. These
resources and services included: Technical and commercialization support provided by the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) Access and office space at NREL’s Colorado Center for Renewable Energy Economic
Development (CREED) Access to NREL’s Venture Capital Advisory Network
 Advisory services from Battelle Ventures tailored to specific technology and businessneeds Technical and commercialization assistance provided by one of CEA’s 18 incubators
depending on individual business needs, and geography Participation in the NREL Industry Growth Forum and The Cleantech Open Profile of technology and business case on EERE’s Energy Innovation Portal
Evaluation: While the regions can determine their own judging criteria, the National
Competition adheres to these judging criteria:
 Solutions/Products (30%): (1) the value a solution/product can deliver to customers,(2) clear and convincing description of the market differentiation for the solution,and (3) technical feasibility.
 Go-To-Market Plan (30%): (1) ability to demonstrate evidence of customer
valuation/validation, (2) prove to the best of their ability that the business isscalable.
 Team Plan (20%): (1) how well the team is positioned to successfully carry out theirbusiness plans, (2) commitment to enterprise, and (3) gaps that currently exist in theorganization and action plan to fill the gaps.
 Impact on EERE Mission (20%): (1) how the solution/product will strengthen theeconomy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil; and (2)identification of which of the eleven areas of EERE’s mission space will benefit fromthe solution/product: Renewable Energy (Solar, Wind, Water, Biomass, Geothermal,
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells) and Energy Efficiency (Homes, Buildings, Vehicles,
Manufacturing, and Government).
Partnerships: The U.S. DOE NCEBPC partnered formally with Wells Fargo, NREL, Mintz
Levin & ML Strategies, the Clean Energy Alliance (CEA), Battelle Ventures, Cleanlaunch,28

and The Cleantech Open. Additionally, their Federal partners included the DOC andOSTP.
Resources: No other DOE appropriations were used for the National Competition. The
regional competitions are a $2.1M 3-year competitive grant program.
Results: The NCEBPC engaged multiple stakeholders at both the national and theregional level. More than 300 teams were involved in 2012 NCEBPC, with more than250+ attendees at the national event. As a result of the competition, as of November
2012, reported metrics include: More than 52 startups incorporated
 55 patents and disclosures have been filed 31+ FTEs created
2.2. Apps for Energy
Overview: DOE’s Apps for Energy offered $100,000 to software developers for the best
new apps that help the public make the most of Green Button electricity usage data.
Website:http://appsforenergy.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: DOE’s Apps for Energy competition offered $100,000 in prizes tosoftware developers for the best new apps that help utility customers make the mostout of their Green Button39 electricity usage data. Green Button is an open standard forsharing electricity data that is available to millions of utility customers, and combining
Green Button data with other public data sources can help homeowners and businesses
take action, understand energy usage, and make better-informed decisions.
Goal: DOE had three goals for the Apps for Energy competition:
 Increase the value of Green Button data for residential and commercial utility
customers by providing new tools for analyzing, viewing, reducing, and sharing theirelectricity usage
 Encourage the creation of innovative apps with commercial potential by individuals,
startups, and small organizations
 Create an active and energy-focused developer community
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: This competition sought to inspire innovative use ofGreen Button data, and a prize allowed DOE to leverage private-sector effort without
predefining the types of applications DOE would like to see. Additionally, competitions
have an existing following among the community of independent software developers, a
39 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/GreenButtonInitiative29

key target community for DOE’s goal of creating an active energy–focused developer
community. Finally, the competition itself provided an opportunity to raise awareness ofthe existence and value of Green Button data.
Participants: The primary target audiences were developers who are not alreadyengaged in the energy sector and developers who are engaged in the energy sector but
are not familiar with the Green Button format. The competition received 56 eligible
submissions from individuals, small teams, and large organizations. Small teams werethe most common, followed by individual entries.
Timeline:
Submission Period Began: April 5, 2012
Submission Period Ended: May 15, 2012
Judging Began: May 17, 2012
Judging Ended: May 21, 2012
Public Voting Ended: May 31, 2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Challenge organizers used an extensive
public engagement campaign focused on targeted outreach to prominent tech andenergy influencers on Twitter, as well as on Facebook to a lesser extent. Challengeorganizers also managed to get a number of stories about the competition in online
technology and energy press. Energy.gov and Challenge.gov were used as hubs forfrequent competition updates and active support, so that competition followers weremore likely to submit high quality work. Finally, challenge organizers worked with anumber of professional organizations to alert their memberships.
Incentives: The primary incentive was $100,000 in prize money. $50,000 was provided
by the Office for Electricity and Energy Reliability and $25,000 was provided each by
PG&E and Itron. For the non-monetary incentives, each winner was included in the 2012
Energy Datapalooza event and their app was featured on Energy.gov.
Evaluation: The judging panel consisted of experts and managers from DOE, thesponsoring organizations, other Federal agencies, and the software design anddevelopment industry, and selected the Best Overall App and Student Award based
upon the following criteria:
 Impact: Strength of the submission’s potential to help individuals, organizations, andcommunities make informed decisions about their electricity use.
 Creativity and Innovation: Degree of new thinking the submission brings toapplications for the energy sector, and the creativity shown in designing for impact.
 Implementation: The submission’s user experience and interactive capabilities, withpreference given to applications that are easily accessible to a range of consumers,
including those with disabilities.

30

A preliminary panel of judges selected by DOE initially screened submissions. The
preliminary panel conducted an initial screening of the apps for eligibility and verified
that the apps worked as advertised in the descriptions. The finalists were then passed tothe judges for ranking. Each judge ranked the apps independently and the rankings werecombined to determine the winner.
Partnerships: Challenge organizers partnered formally with GRID21, PG&E, and Itron tosponsor the prize. They provided monetary and marketing and outreach support.
Challenge organizers partnered informally with a great number of organizations toimprove their outreach abilities, including the App Developers Alliance, Code for
America, Innocentive, EPA, DOC, and various educational organizations.
Resources: In addition to the prize money, the competition required $2,000 in additional
funding, used to customize the website and employ ChallengePost to vet the validity ofusers participating in the Popular Choice Award vote.
Results: The competition resulted in a large number of submissions, and the discussion
boards on Challenge.gov were heavily used during the competition, both indications of
the beginning of an active developer community. Additionally, the winning apps show 3
diverse and valuable approaches to using Green Button data and 2 of the 3 top apps
have either been used to found a company or have since been acquired by anothercompany. An established company that was making its first foray into using Green
Button data submitted the third app. The competition itself attracted over 12,000
followers.
2.3. SunShot Prize: Race to the Rooftops
Overview: DOE’s $10 million SunShot Prize challenges the ingenuity of America’s
businesses and communities to make it faster, easier, and cheaper to install rooftop
solar energy systems. Successful competitors will deploy domestically and in twophases, at least 6,000 new rooftop photovoltaic installations at an average pre-subsidy
non-hardware cost of $1 per watt. Winners will break this significant price barrier,considered to be unachievable a decade ago, and prove that they can repeatedly
achieve a $1 per watt non-hardware cost using innovative, verifiable processes andbusiness practices.
Website:http://challenge.gov/DOE/410-sunshot-prize
Problem Statement: Despite unprecedented cost reductions for solar hardware overrecent years, the total price to install and commission residential and small-commercial
scale solar energy systems remains high. Designing and implementing practices thatenable reductions in the associated non-hardware costs of solar is now the greatest
challenge to achieving national targets for attaining cost-competitive solar by 2020.
31

Goal: DOE has three main goals for Race to the Rooftops challenge: Affordability: Improve the affordability of residential and small commercial rooftop
solar systems by breaking a significant price barrier for non-hardware costs,
considered impossible a decade ago. Hardware costs have fallen more than 75%
since 2008, the non-hardware costs have not made as significant of an advance. The
goal of this prize is to help the community achieve lower all in costs to the consumer
by cutting through much of the red tape.
 Solar Market Maturity: Inspire U.S. businesses and communities to create the rightmarket conditions for growth and job creation.
 Subsidy Independence: Help the private sector transition to post-subsidy market
while maintaining strong growth and resilience.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The SunShot Prize not only rewards for results in costeffective ways, it increases the number and the diversity of individuals, organizations,and teams that are addressing this problem. In addition, DOE expects the industry
overall to invent and deploy new business concepts and models during a period of two
years. This will help all market players, not only the best, to participate, excel, andimprove while focusing on their core value proposition to end consumers.
Participants: The target audiences are teams consisting of numerous organizations suchas solar developers, installers (large and small), state and local governments, utilities,
property owners/managers, new housing builders, home service providers, tradeassociations, and new market entrants. The prize is open to all U.S. citizens orpermanent residents and to all public and private organizations such as a private or
publicly traded company or an institution of higher education, an association, or othernonprofit organization, that maintains the U.S. as a primary place of business.
Timeline:
Registration to compete period begins: 9/12/2012
Submission period begins: 12/31/2012
Registration to compete deadline: 10/31/2014
Pre-submission assessment period ends: 11/30/2014
Phase I Prize submission deadline: 12/31/2014
Phase II Prize submission deadline: 12 months after Phase I submission
Anticipated date for announcing Phase I winners: Summer 2015
Anticipated Date for awarding Phase II cash awards: Spring 2016
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Challenge organizers have been
applying a targeted engagement campaign using webinars, email blasts, blog posts, andweb updates that target tens of thousands of people and organizations. Challengeorganizers also managed to get a number of press releases about the competition in
online technology, media, and energy press. The SunShot Initiative website, Energy.gov,
and Challenge.gov were used as hubs for frequent competition updates and active
support to potential contenders. Challenge organizers have partnered with the College32

of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at State University of New York at Albany (CNSE),
to promote and provide ongoing outreach through annual workshops dedicate to the
SunShot Prize and its potential contenders.
Incentives: The primary incentive is a $10,000,000 total cash award given to threewinning teams. In addition, winners will have rights to use the title “SunShot Prize
Winner.” The first team will have the rights to the title “SunShot Prize Winner ofAmerica’s Most Affordable Rooftop Solar.”
Evaluation: DOE will establish by 2014 an Evaluation Review Committee (ERC) composedof Federal and non-Federal subject matter experts, including third-party organizations,
to review entries submitted under this competition and determine winners. In addition,
DOE will use a third-party auditing firm to conduct extensive technical and financial
evaluations in order to assist the ERC in making its selections. There are three main
criteria in judging applications:
1. Technical Field Assessment: Examiners will review evidence of installation
qualification and compliance with requirements. Examiners may conduct random
on-site visits to verify submitted records by applicants.
2. Financial and Accounting Assessment: Examiners will perform a complete audit todetermine financial propriety of submissions. Auditors will review all financialtransactions, accounting procedures, internal controls, financial terms, and financial
reporting systems.
3. Business Sustainability: Examiners will evaluate the sustainability of teams’ businessmodels to deploy solar in subsidy-free U.S. markets. Future installations must be
feasible without subsidies or rebates at average non-hardware costs of $1/W or less.
Partnerships: Challenge organizers partnered formally with the College of Nanoscale
Science and Engineering at State University of New York at Albany to promote andprovide ongoing outreach activities.
Resources: In addition to the $10,000,000 prize money, the competition requires
roughly $50,000 annually to fund and support outreach activities.
Results: DOE released the SunShot Prize: Race to the Rooftops in September 2012.
Based on the feedback, inquires, and comments received through formal
communication channels and based on the number webinar attendance, challengeorganizers think there is a great interest in the solar community in this challenge.

33

3. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Health and Human Services
3.1. My Air, My Health Challenge
Overview: Environment and public health are closely related and complementary
fields—and their future depends on a closer understanding of those connections. New
portable sensors have the potential to transform the way challenge organizers measureand interpret the influence of pollution on health. These technologies can provide a
picture that is more detailed and more personal, with dramatic implications for healthcare, air quality oversight, and individuals’ control over their own environments andhealth. The EPA and HHS — including NIEHS and ONC — envision a future in whichpowerful, affordable, and portable sensors provide a rich awareness of environmental
quality, moment-to-moment physiological changes, and long-term health outcomes.
Healthcare will be connected to the whole environment, improving diagnosis,
treatment, and prevention at all levels. Many of the first steps toward this future havealready been taken. Prototype projects have developed portable air quality andphysiologic sensors, and experimental analysis tools for handling data that is higher inquantity, but often lower in quality, than more traditional monitoring techniques. The“My Air, My Health Challenge” was designed to build on this foundation. Challengeorganizers sought solutions that integrate data from portable physiological and air
quality monitors, producing a combined picture that is meaningful and usable.
Website:https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9932947
Problem Statement: The challenge was a multidisciplinary call to innovators andsoftware developers to enable near real time, location-specific monitoring and reportingof air pollutants and potentially related physiological parameters, using a personal/
portable integrated system to assess connections between the two. The system needed
to link air-pollutant concentrations with physiological data, provide geo-coded and timestamped files in an easy-to-use format, and transmit this data via existing networks to acentral data repository provided by EPA and HHS.
Goal: The challenge was structured in 2 phases:
Phase 1 – Project Plan
In Phase 1, entrants needed to: Propose a plausible link between health outcomes and airborne pollutants (chemical
species and/or particulates), and provide evidence to support a plausible andphysiologically meaningful relationship between airborne pollutants andphysiological metrics in a defined population.
 Propose a prototype design and development plan for an integrated multi-sensor
and data management system that may be easily worn or carried by individuals
within the defined target community/population.
34

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
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Conceptualize data generation, management (may include processing & on-board
storage), and transmission functionality of the device.
Propose a small-scale proof-of-concept study to validate the proposed prototype.
Study design process must include input from the target community/population.

Phase 2 – Proof-of-Concept Pilot Project Finalists attended an event for feedback, questions, and business/entrepreneurial
resources prepared by Challenge sponsors (EPA, HHS ONC, and NIEHS).
 Solvers developed prototypes and executed experimental validation of the system tobring together data from personal air quality and physiological monitors, showing
how these types of data and sensors can be integrated for practical use by healthand environmental agencies, and by individual citizens. Proof-of-concept dataneeded to illustrate the accuracy and precision of the raw data and of any processeddata produced by the system.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The challenge was an integral part of the joint effort
by HHS and EPA to find next-generation solutions in the area of environmental andhealth sensor technologies and exploring the interaction of environment and healththrough granular, near-real-time data collection. Grants or contracts were notappropriate because the agencies sought a variety of different ideas rather than having
to select one approach based only on a proposal. In addition, the challenge afforded
opportunities to communicate both agencies’ interest in this topic for the purpose ofencouraging private-sector development.
Participants: The challenge had 32 final entrants. Most were small teams, and four
teams were from foreign countries despite clear messaging that only U.S. citizens or
U.S.-based businesses were eligible to win the competition.
Timeline:
Phase 1 Open – 06/6/12
Phase 1 Close – 10/5/12
Phase 2 – 10/5/12 – 6/4/13
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Social media, promotions atconferences, and outreach to developer community were used. HHS’s partner Health
2.0 and the EPA contractor for this challenge, InnoCentive, coordinated these outreachefforts. In addition, EPA and NIEHS both engaged the public with press releases, blog
posts, and announcements, including the launch announcement at the 2012 HDI event
in Washington, DC. The challenge was also published on the Popular Science Innovation
Pavilion run by InnoCentive. The combination of all these efforts led to significant
interest in the challenge – the primary registration and submission site, run by
InnoCentive, saw the creation of over 500 project rooms, a proxy for the number ofpeople interested enough to register to enter the challenge. The largest source (40%) ofpage views of the InnoCentive page came from the Popular Science Pavilion. Usage of35

the Pavilion worked well for the challenge; the science- and academic-heavy community
it reaches matched up well with the very technical requirements of the challenge. The
restriction of America COMPETES to U.S. citizens and businesses, however, mitigated
the usefulness of the Pavilion, as the Pavilion reaches an international audience rather
than focusing on a domestic audience.
Incentives: Finalists will be invited to an event providing feedback, presentations fromsubject matter experts, and networking. $60,000 for the Phase 1 cash prize purse camefrom EPA funds. $75,000 for the Phase 2 cash prize purse was drawn from ONC’s
Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with Capital Consulting Corporation. The remaining$25,000 for the Phase 2 cash prize purse came from NIEHS.
Evaluation:
The following Phase 1 criteria used to review the submissions: Strength of evidence regarding the linkage between air pollutant and physiologicaleffect Viability of proposed sensor technologies to detect and quantify pollutants and theireffects and to provide physiologically relevant health and air quality data
 Viability of the proposed project plan for producing a prototype Viability of the proposed instrument design as a wearable/portable device Potential significance of technology and eventual benefit to target population(s) Viability of the proposed proof-of-concept study (low complexity is preferred) Appropriate use of community input in designing proof-of-concept study
The following Phase 2 criteria used to review the finalist submissions: Sensors: Successful technical collection of both health and environmental data
 Data reporting: Successful formatting and transmission of data
 Data processing and evaluation
 Community involvement and interaction
Partnerships: ONC partnered with EPA and NIEHS to manage the challenge; EPA
contracted with InnoCentive to provide challenge management services.
Resources: In addition to the cash prize purse, $550 in ONC travel funds will be used fortransport to the finalist event held in Research Triangle Park, NC. One employee
managed the challenge as a part of his overall challenge portfolio. NIEHS and EPA staff
also participated in challenge management.
Results: Phase 1 was still open as of the close of FY 2012. Full competition results will bereported in the FY 2013 report to Congress. While the challenge is not yet complete,
what has transpired so far has been successful – it has stimulated interest in the topic
from a wide range of individuals and institutions including large companies, universities,
athletics suppliers, and lone innovators. It demonstrates that the challenge mechanism36

is a viable platform for agency collaboration around a topic of mutual interest. The
creation of the actual prototypes based on the finalists’ proposals will be a key
component in evaluating the success of the challenge and what lessons can be learnedin future ones that involve physical work (as opposed to software and coding).

4. Department of Health and Human Services
4.1. SMART-Indivo Challenge
Overview: This challenge called on developers to build an Indivo application thatprovides value to patients using data delivered through the SMART API and its Indivospecific extensions. Indivo is a free, open source, personally-controlled health record
platform.40 SMART (Substitutable Medical Apps, Reusable Technologies)41 is one of fourStrategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) funded by ONC. SMART
facilitates innovation in health care by providing common APIs and standards forelectronic medical records and personally controlled health records, enabling them toact as iPhone-like platforms; users can download or delete substitutable apps. Using the
SMART API and standards, augmented by functionality like sharing, developers cancreate powerful patient-facing applications.
Website:http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/smart-indivo-app-challenge/
Problem Statement: The healthcare system is adapting to the effects of an aging
population, growing expenditures, and a diminishing primary care workforce and needs
the support of a flexible information infrastructure that facilitates innovation inwellness, health care, and public health. The challenge asked developers to create an
Indivo app that could access patient demographics, medications, laboratory tests, anddiagnoses using Web standards. Developers could, for example, build a medication
manager, a health risk detector, a patient-friendly laboratory visualization tool, or an
app that integrates external data sources (such as those found at
http://www.healthdata.gov/) with patient records in real time.
Goal: This program was designed to test the challenge mechanism as a way to support
an existing grant program.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The challenge mechanism was viewed as a way togenerate proof-of-concept apps for the developer framework produced by an ONC
grant. This would be a novel way to generate interest and awareness of the project and40 http://indivohealth.org/
41 http://www.smartplatforms.org/

37

provide feedback on how developers unaffiliated with SMART viewed the framework.
While the relatively small prize award may have put a ceiling on the amount of interest
that would be generated, it also minimized the financial risk of an unsuccessful
challenge.
Participants: The challenge had five entrants: one a single individual, others were small
teams linked through their workplaces or small companies.
Timeline:
Open - 7/9/2012
Solicitation Close - 9/28/2012
Winners Announced - 11/30/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include: social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion by Health 2.0. In addition, the SMART team at Harvard
Medical School assisted by adding a challenge page to the project website.
Incentives: First Place: $10,000 & publicity from Health 2.0/ONC
 Second Place: $2,000
 Third Place: $1,000
Evaluation: A four-member review panel of individuals from the SMART team reviewed
and scored each of the submissions using a web form that listed the evaluation criteria
and their weights. Each criterion for each submission was rated from one (lowest) to
five (highest), and a composite score was calculated; space for qualitative feedback wasalso included. Live demos of the top scorers were held via webinar to give the challengemanagers the opportunity to ask additional questions of the potential winners thatprovided insight into the submissions, the developers, and their feedback on thechallenge. The criteria used to review the submissions were: Usefulness to patients
 Importance to clinical medicine or public health Interface and presentation
 Use of the Indivo and SMART APIs Creative use of data from the sandbox and (optionally) from open health data
sourcesPartnerships: None38

Resources: All funds were drawn from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with
Capital Consulting Corporation. No agency funding outside of the contract was used.
One employee managed the challenge as a part of his overall challenge portfolio.
Results: Final winners were not announced by the end of FY 2012, and final competition
results will be included in the FY 2013 prizes report to Congress.
4.2. EHR Accessibility Module Challenge
Overview: ONC challenged multidisciplinary teams to create and test a module orapplication that makes it easy for disabled consumers to access and interact with thehealth data stored in their Electronic Health Records (EHRs). According to 2000
estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Census, people with disabilities constitute 18.7 % of
the non-institutionalized population. Among adults, individuals with disabilities are
twelve times as likely to report having fair or poor health compared to those without adisability (47% vs. 4%). This population faces considerable difficulties with accessing andreceiving care and the lack of coordinated care for this population is particularly costly.
Health expenditures for people with disabilities are estimated at $400 billion, more thana quarter of all heath expenditures. Health information technology (HIT) and EHRs holdgreat promise in improving the health outcomes and coordination of care for people
with disabilities. However, the accessibility and usability of HIT is a matter of concern topeople of diverse disabilities, including those who have vision, hearing, intellectual,manual dexterity, mental health, developmental, and other types of disabilities. The
disabled population cannot afford to miss out on the benefits that can be derived fromhaving access to the health information stored in EHRs just because existing tools are
not compliant with their needs. Building an accessible system from the ground up canbe more cost effective than retrofitting current ones to suit this large group and canprevent future interoperability issues. In addition, innovation in this area can also help
older individuals with changing abilities due to aging, and can help inspire usability
improvements for all consumers on a more general basis.
Website:http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/ehr-accessibility-module/
Problem Statement: The challenge was for multidisciplinary teams to create and test amodule or application that makes it easy for disabled consumers to access and interact
with the health data stored in their EHRs. The application was to: Be easy for individuals with disabilities to interact with their health data Be simple to install and learn to use Identify and link to relevant local or online communities and organizations
 Be able to download data from one or more EHR systems – it did not need to be fully
integrated across all systems
Goal: Improve service delivery
39

Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was chosen because theadvantages that come from open innovation were deemed more appropriate for the
project than sole-source acquisition. These advantages include focusing the developer
community on a high priority topic, leveraging developers’ creativity and knowledge ofwhat makes successful apps rather than choosing a team or approach at the outset ofthe project and then having to stick with it, and using the public nature of the challengemechanism to draw attention to the topic through live and social media
announcements. Since one of the goals of the project was simply to create morepotential solutions for stakeholders, a contract or grant that would have resulted in only
one solution being created would not have been appropriate.
Participants: The challenge had five entrants, all of which were small teams linked
through their workplaces or were small companies.
Timeline:
Submission Open -- 1/30/2012
Submission Close -- 7/23/2012
Winners Announced -- 8/13/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion by Health 2.0. The challenge was run in collaboration with
HHS’ Office on Disability, which also promoted the challenge in its own communications.
Subject matter experts from NIST and Access Board also assisted with outreach.
Incentives: Exhibition opportunity at relevant conference or event and $70,000 total
cash prizes; all funds were drawn from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with
Capital Consulting Corporation.
Evaluation: A four-member review panel composed of individuals representing NIST,
Access Board, HHS’ Office on Disability, and CMS reviewed and scored each of thesubmissions against the weighted evaluation criteria. Live demos of the top scorers
were held via webinar to give the challenge managers the opportunity to ask additionalquestions of the potential winners that provided insight into the submissions, thedevelopers, and their feedback on the challenge.
The criteria used to review the submissions were: Design and usability for the disabled user Creative and innovative use of technologies
 Compliance with disability and accessibility standards including 508 and W3C
 Integration of module with HIT and EHR systems
 Potential for impact and ability to drive adoption and engagement

40

Partnerships: Formal partnerships were not established for this challenge, but theorganizations of the subject matter experts (NIST, Access Board, and HHS Office on
Disability) assisted in communications and outreach.
Resources: No agency funding outside of the contract was used. One employee
managed the challenge as a part of his overall challenge portfolio.
Results: This challenge sought to advance the agency mission by improving access topersonal health data for people with disabilities. While the winner met expectations, thesubmissions for this challenge were fewer than other similar i2 challenges and of lower
quality – several submissions simply used the built-in accessibility features of operating
systems and made only small tweaks to their already-existing products. This may havebeen due to low interest in the developer community or the fact that the i2 program
was running multiple challenges concurrently, giving developers several to choose toparticipate in, thereby capping the number of developers that would submit for each.
4.3. Discharge Follow-Up Appointment Challenge
Overview: In order to support broader adoption and uptake of promising IT-enabledinterventions that address care transitions, ONC challenged software developers tocreate an easy-to-use web-based tool to make post-discharge follow-up appointment
scheduling an effective process for care providers, patients, and caregivers. Nearly one
in five patients from a hospital will be readmitted within 30 days. A large proportion ofreadmissions can be prevented by improving communications and coordinating carebefore and after discharge from the hospital. Research has shown that schedulingfollow-up appointments and post-discharge testing before a patient is discharged is oneof the critical elements of a safe and effective transition. Most patients across thecountry continue to leave the hospital without confirmed appointments and many
providers remain frustrated by a highly manual and unreliable system. Communities
struggling with the process of scheduling and securing these appointments havearticulated challenges faced by the following stakeholders: Patients and caregivers: Lack of involvement in transition process leading to lack ofunderstanding of appointment necessity, scheduling conflicts, transportationdifficulties, and high risk of cancelation or no-shows.
 Discharging hospital provider: Inability to see appointment availability to assist
patient and caregiver with scheduling (resulting in the need for multiple phone
calls), resistance from downstream providers while trying to secure appointment for
harder to place/high risk patients, lack of feedback if a no-show or cancellation
occurs, and burden of multiple post-discharge needs.
 Downstream provider: High no-show rates or cancelations, lack of predictability of
appointment requests from discharging hospital provider, and lack of information
regarding high-risk or harder to place patients.

41

A growing number of innovative consumer-facing tools are becoming available forpatients and care givers to schedule appointments and rate providers. However, thesetools have not yet reached high levels of adoption within communities, and to date havenot targeted the appointment scheduling needs of patients, caregivers, and providers at
the point of discharge from a hospital.
Website:http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/discharge-follow-up-appointmentchallenge/
Problem Statement: In order to support broader adoption and uptake of promising ITenabled interventions that address care transitions, ONC challenged softwaredevelopers to create an easy-to-use web-based tool to make post-discharge follow-up
appointment scheduling a more effective and shared process for care providers,patients and caregivers. In addition, developers needed to articulate a plan for broader
adoption at the community level. The ideal application would include the following
components:
 Easy to navigate user interface
 Easy to navigate process for downstream accepting providers
 Information for patient and caregiver convenience and preference Critical background information for downstream provider
 Messaging capabilities to minimize no-shows and cancellations
 EHR interface capabilities where applicable
To anticipate the needs of a test bed organization or community, successful applicantsalso needed to submit a brief pilot implementation proposal (250-500 words) that
addresses factors including timeline, description of pilot environment needs, andadditional resource needs.
Goal: Improve service delivery
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was chosen because theadvantages that come from open innovation were deemed more appropriate for the
project than sole-source acquisition, as described above. In this case, one of the goals of
the challenge was simply to create a greater number of potential solutions from whichstakeholders could choose; a contract or grant would have resulted in only one.
Participants: The challenge had 13 entrants. Entrants were for the most part small
teams (three to five people) linked through school or workplace, or small companies.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 1/26/2012
Solicitation Close – 4/30/2012
Winners Announced – 5/23/2012
42

Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion by Health 2.0. The challenge was also communicated directly
to care transitions stakeholders at transitions-specific meetings. Considering thechallenge’s technical complexity and the prizes offered, the number of submissions
received was within the range of expectations. Challenge organizers suspect that one
reason provider-oriented challenges tend to receive fewer submissions than consumertargeted ones is that the former are less likely to garner the mainstream attention.
Incentives: Partnership consideration with a pilot test bed community candidate; threeday site visit to the pilot community; and $5,000 total cash prizes. All funds were drawn
from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with Capital Consulting Corporation.
Evaluation: A six-member review panel composed of individuals representing caretransitions organizations and ONC reviewed and scored each of the submissions using a
web form that listed the evaluation criteria and their weights. Live demos of the top
scorers were held via webinar to give the challenge managers the opportunity to ask
additional questions of the potential winners that provided insight into the submissions,the developers, and their feedback on the challenge.
The criteria used to review the submissions were: Effectively integrate inpatient data and provide structured support for self-care Integrate design and usability concepts to drive patient and provider adoption andengagement Demonstrate creative and innovative uses of mobile technologies
 Demonstrate potential to improve health status for individuals and the community
 Leverage NwHIN standards including transport, content, and vocabularies
 Demonstrate ability to implement the intervention in a pilot setting, and ultimately
to scale in a community.
Partnerships: ONC was assisted by the Partnership for Patients (a CMS-led initiative) in
communications activities.
Resources: No agency funding outside of the contract was used. One employee
managed the challenge as a part of his overall challenge portfolio.
Results: This challenge advanced the agency’s mission by creating numerous new tools42
for providers to use to reduce patient readmissions through effective appointment
scheduling. Reduction in readmissions due to usage of these tools will result in
improved patient health and lowering of health care costs. The top submissions all
42 http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/discharge-follow-up-appointment-challenge/43

included easy-to-use, synchronized scheduling tools for providers, consumers, andcaretakers while also providing assorted other functionalities that appeal to different
types of stakeholders, including integration with multi-purpose patient portals,
appointment transportation coordination, and automated reminders. The First Place
winning application, MyHealthDIRECT, is a web-based solution that effectively matches
the demand for health care appointments with a supply of actual appointment slots.
4.4. Reporting Patient Safety Events
Overview: Hospitals and other health care organizations have multiple adverse event
reporting relationships with Patient Safety Organizations (PSO), state agencies, and the
FDA. Hospitals struggle to increase internal incident reporting, especially by busy careproviders, and to create effective systems for the quality and risk management staff tocomplete root cause analyses and follow-up which are required by both CMS and the
Joint Commission. Quality and risk management staff suffer from reporting fatigue in apaper-based reporting system, which affects reporting frequency and quality – much
effort is spent on convincing physicians and nurses to report incidents, complete
investigations, fill out the appropriate forms, and fax them to the appropriate agencies.
These reporting issues could be partially alleviated through the deployment of aneffective software reporting solution. Solutions would need to make it easier for any
qualified individual to file a report electronically and must allow the hospital quality andrisk management staff to add information from follow-up investigation, submit reports
as appropriate to PSOs, the state, or the FDA, and track follow-up activities.
Website:http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/reporting-patient-safety-events-challenge/
Problem Statement: The challenge asked multi-disciplinary teams to develop an
application that facilitates the reporting of patient safety events, whether implemented
in hospital or ambulatory settings.
To qualify to win, applications needed to: Increase the ease of reporting patient safety events to the provider or parent
organization.
 Enable providers to import relevant EHR, personal health record, and otherelectronic information, including screen shots, to the patient safety report and, inturn, submit an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Common
Formats-compliant report to one or more PSOs.
 Capture useful demographic and other relevant information from each patient
including age, gender, race, and relevant diagnoses.
 Capture information about the type of organization submitting the report using
AHRQ’s PSO Information format.

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Reduce burden of reporting by enabling the provider or parent organization to havethe option of submitting information in the patient safety report to non-PSO publichealth or health oversight organizations, including state or federal programs or
accrediting or certifying bodies.
Be platform-agnostic; andLeverage and extend NwHIN standards and services including, but not limited to,transport (Direct, web services), content (Transitions of Care, CCD/CCR), andstandardized vocabularies.

Goal: Improve service delivery
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was chosen because theadvantages that come from open innovation were deemed more appropriate for the
project than sole-source acquisition, as described above. Like i2 challenges, it was
important to seed the space with a number of different solutions and give providers ahandful of options, with varying functionalities, from which to choose.
Participants: The challenge had 13 entrants. Entrants were for the most part small
teams (three to five people) linked through school or workplace, or small companies.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 4/12/2012
Solicitation Close – 8/31/2012
Winners Announced – 11/14/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion by Health 2.0. The challenge was also communicated directly
to patient safety stakeholders at safety-specific meetings. Considering the challenge’s
technical complexity and the incentives offered, the number of submissions received
was within the range of expectations.
Incentives: Exhibition opportunity at relevant conference or event and $70,000 total
cash prizes; all funds were drawn from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with
Capital Consulting Corporation.
Evaluation: A five-member review panel representing AHRQ, ONC, and FDA reviewed
and scored each of the submissions against weighted evaluation criteria. Live demos of
the top scorers were held via webinar to give the challenge managers the opportunity to
ask additional questions of the potential winners that provided insight into thesubmissions, the developers, and their feedback on the challenge. Including members of
the review panel on the live demos helped facilitate post-challenge activities andoutreach about the challenge and winners.
45

Partnerships: Following the conclusion of the challenge, AHRQ provided assistance incommunicating the winners and their solutions to appropriate stakeholders andpotential customers.
Resources: No agency funding outside of the contract was used. One employee
managed the challenge as a part of his overall challenge portfolio.
Results: The challenge helped the agency mission by creating new tools that advancethe ability of providers, particularly busy hospitals, to report safety events. Like several
other provider-oriented i2 challenges, these tools provide solutions where either there
weren’t any before or the products available were not sufficient to enact meaningfulchange. Adoption of these tools will also help spread the use of AHRQ’s Common
Formats, promoting a standard that will make exchange of safety reports a smootherand easier process in the future.
4.5. popHealth Tool Development Challenge
Overview: Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health(HITECH) Act, eligible health care professionals and hospitals can qualify for Medicare
and Medicaid incentive payments when they adopt certified EHR technology and use it
to achieve specified objectives. These "Meaningful Use" objectives include measureablebenchmarks providers must meet to qualify for the incentive payments. popHealth is an
open source software service developed under the guidance of the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) that automates thereporting of the Stage 1 Meaningful Use clinical quality measures. popHealth integrates
with a healthcare provider’s electronic health record (EHR) system using continuity ofcare records. It streamlines the automated generation of summary quality measurereports on the provider’s patient population. ONC challenged software developers tocreate applications that leveraged the popHealth open source framework, existing
functionality, standards, and sample datasets to improve patient care and provide
greater insight into patient populations.
Website:http://www.health2challenge.org/pophealth-tool-development-challenge/
Problem Statement: ONC challenged software developers to create applications thatleveraged the popHealth open source framework, existing functionality, standards, andsample datasets to improve patient care and provide insight into patient populations.
Applications were to accomplish at least one of the following: Help providers improve patient safety
 Help providers use quality measure calculations to better engage with patients Help providers address disparities in the care they provide to their patient
populations
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



Help providers engage patients and families
Aggregate data from across multiple sites to allow public health entities to develop a
more clearly defined picture of community health status and risk factors
Visualize information in the popHealth system related to meaningful use measures
Target patients with high disease burden in need of early intervention

Goal: Improve service delivery.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was chosen because theadvantages that come from open innovation were deemed more appropriate for the
project than sole-source acquisition, as described above. This aspect was particularly
relevant here since one of the goals of the challenge was to increase awareness of the
popHealth tool in general and increase its adoption and usage by providers.
Participants: The challenge had 11 entrants. Entrants were for the most part small
teams (three to five people) linked through school or workplace, or small companies.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 10/3/2011
Solicitation Close – 1/21/2012
Winners Announced – 2/20/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion by Health 2.0. The MITRE Corp. also helped spread the word
to developer networks.
Incentives: Exhibition opportunity at relevant conference or event and $100,000 total
cash prizes; all funds were drawn from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with
Capital Consulting Corporation.
Evaluation: A five-member review panel including representatives from ONC reviewed
and scored each of the submissions against weighted criteria. Live demos of the top
scorers were held via webinar to give the challenge managers the opportunity to ask
additional questions of the potential winners that provided insight into the submissions,the developers, and their feedback on the challenge.
The criteria used to review the submissions were: Ability to integrate with popHealth system and build upon existing functionality
 Impact on stakeholders
 Usability and design from the standpoint of all stakeholders
 Creativity and innovation

47

Partnerships: ONC’s contractor MITRE Corp. developed the original popHealthframework and tool, so it was engaged to help market the challenge and to answer
questions from potential solvers. Unsurprisingly, it was very helpful to have the expertson popHealth available to handle specific technical questions.
Resources: No agency funding outside of the contract was used. One employee and one
detailee managed the challenge as a part of their overall challenge portfolio.
Results: This challenge advanced the agency mission by helping to make it easier forproviders to report Meaningful Use clinical quality measures. Solutions were of highquality, due in part to the clean graphics of and ease of developing for the popHealthframework. They provided new functionalities for the tool which otherwise would havebeen done by MITRE, at higher contractor costs. However, long-term success for thischallenge is highly dependent on adoption of the basic popHealth tool.
4.6. One in a Million Hearts Challenge
Overview: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in America. The goal of
the Million Hearts initiative is to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes over five
years by reducing the number of people who need treatment and improving the qualityof treatment for those who do need it. To achieve this goal, a range of programs will betargeted toward improving care of the ABCS: "A" for aspirin therapy for people at highrisk, "B" for blood pressure control, "C" for cholesterol management, and "S" forsmoking cessation. This challenge is a multidisciplinary call to innovators and developers
to create an application that activates and empowers patients to get healthy andimprove their heart health using the ABCS.
Website:http://www.health2challenge.org/one-in-a-million-hearts-challenge/
Problem Statement:
Submissions were required to: Provide information about the Million Hearts initiative
 Have patients enter relevant information about their health such as age, body massindex, blood pressure, cholesterol level, smoking status, pertinent medical history,
aspirin, and cholesterol-lowering agent use
 Use the patient-reported data and ABCS framework to generate targetedrecommendations to the patient such as providing education and resources to help
reduce fat and salt intake, increase exercise, lose weight, stop smoking, or increase
medication adherence (e.g., to improve control of high blood pressure); using GPS
technology to recommend nearby walks or places to eat healthier; recommending to48



the high-risk patient to see a primary care doctor if not on aspirin or cholesterollowering medication; or linking to online heart-health communities
Be able to send patient information to electronic health records via Direct43

Goal: Solve a health problem(s)Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was chosen because theadvantages that come from open innovation, as described above, were deemed more
appropriate for the project than sole-source acquisition.
Participants: The challenge had 19 entrants. Entrants were for the most part small
teams (three to five people) linked through school or workplace, or small companies.
Timeline:
Solicitation Opened: 10/3/2011
Solicitation Closed: 1/1/2012
Winners Announced: 3/25/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Communications and outreach methods
used include social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn); outreach to the Health 2.0
Developer Community; a webinar discussing the challenge, framing issues, and Q&A;
and conference promotion (American College of Cardiology Conference).
Incentives: Exhibition opportunity at relevant conference or event and $75,000 total
cash prizes. All funds were drawn from ONC’s Investing in Innovation (i2) contract with
Capital Consulting Corporation.
Evaluation: A seven-member review panel representing an assortment of heart healthrelated organizations, including American Heart Association, American College of
Cardiology, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, reviewed and scored eachof the submissions against weighted evaluation criteria. Since the submission package
was a demo video and descriptive slides rather than an actual, publically available app,
after the top finishers were determined live demos were held via webinar to prove thatthe solutions were not vaporware. In addition to the confirmation aspect, the demos
allowed the challenge managers to ask questions of the potential winners that provided
insight into the submissions, the developers, and their feedback on the challenge.
The criteria used to review the submissions were: Patient engagement
 Quality and accessibility of information and resources Targeted and actionable information
43 http://directproject.org

49

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

Innovativeness and Usability
Bonus points awarded for creating both English and Spanish versions

Partnerships: ONC partnered with the Million Hearts Initiative, an intra-HHS partnership,
for their subject-matter expertise and communications and outreach channels.
Resources: No agency funding outside of the contract was used. One employee and one
detailee managed the challenge as a part of their overall challenge portfolio.
Results: This challenge advanced the agency mission by empowering individuals toimprove their health using health IT tools. The submissions demonstrated a range ofapproaches to this type of tool, including websites, mobile-optimized sites, mobile
phone apps, augmentations and additions to personal health portals, and SMS/text
messages.
4.7. What's in your Health Record Video Challenge
Overview: Video competition to inspire members of the public to develop short videos
sharing a story about why having access to review what is in a patient’s health record
can improve that patient’s quality of care or the care of a loved one. Patients have alegal right under HIPAA to request to see and get a copy of their health info from theirhealth care providers. However, awareness about this right is low.
Website:http://yourrecord.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: This competition was one method of increasing awareness about
patients’ legal right to get access to their medical records from their health careproviders in an electronic format, if available. Participants were asked to provide a
specific example (personal story, experience, testimonial, or thoughtful idea) of thebenefits of having access to view their health record and the ability to review what's intheir health record. The video had to encourage viewers to visit www.HealthIT.gov andto ask their health care provider to see and get a copy of their medical record.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Challenge organizers wanted to crowd-sourcecompelling personal stories from the public that could potentially motivate and inspireothers to adopt health IT and eHealth tools to be more engaged with their health careprovider and to take a more active role in their own health and health care. Organizers
also wanted to increase awareness about the role that health IT can play in people’s
lives, and the challenge generated press and web traffic, which elevated awareness of
their Consumer eHealth program and started a viral conversation about the value of50

health IT. Prize money helped to attract a diversity of people to participate in thesecompetitions — from a range of different ethnicities, ages and geographies.
Participants: 31 eligible submissions; 1/3 of entrants were teams, the rest wereindividuals.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 7/9/2012
Solicitation Close – 8/23/2012
Winner Announced – 9/10/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Newsletters and targeted emails tomore than 300,000 registered users in the ChallengePost network. Targeted outreach
via email and social media channels to influencers, hackathon organizers, and developer
communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Google Groups, and Meetup.
Weekly/bi-weekly targeted emails to the registrants and followers, providing reminders
on important dates and tips on getting started. Leveraged all ONC communication
channels, including ONC list-serv of 58K subscribers, blog, and social media channels.
Incentives: Prize purse was $7700 (5 awards: First Prize $3K, 2nd Prize $2K, 3rd Prize$1K, 2 honorable mention awards of $500); Money to oversee the competitions andallocate prize money was provided through a contract with RTI funded with FY12 funds.
Evaluation: A four-person panel evaluated submissions. Each submission was evaluatedon a scale of 1-5 on each of the following criteria: 1) quality of story and 2) potential
impact on motivating others to access their health record.
Partnerships: None
Resources: 20% of 1 FTE staffer to oversee the contract and assist with marketing andoutreach support for each competition, including the recruitment of partners. Contract
support provided by RTI, who sub-contracted to ChallengePost.
Results: Scripting, shooting, and editing two-minute promotional videos costs, on
average, about $10,000. This competition received 31 eligible video submissions –potentially $310,000 worth of promotional material and over 40 times the $7,700 inprize money awarded. In addition, the attention received, both mainstream and within
the participating communities, was valuable. The challenge received hundreds of social
media mentions as well as mainstream media exposure. The winning videos combined
were viewed over 1,909 times. The challenge website received over 25K page views,
over 7K site visits, and over 947 followers. Over 750 votes were cast by the public forsubmissions to determine the Popular Choice winner.

51

4.8.

Managing Meds Video Challenge

Overview: The Managing Meds Video Challenge invited the public to create short,inspiring videos sharing how they have used technology to manage taking medications
effectively or to support individuals to take their medications as directed. There areserious consequences for patients from not taking medications as prescribed.
Website:http://managingmeds.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: Consumers or patients could participate by creating a less than two
minute video demonstrating how they can use technology for medication management.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Challenge organizers wanted to crowd-sourcecompelling personal stories from the public that could potentially motivate and inspireothers to adopt health IT and eHealth tools to be more engaged with their health careprovider and to take a more active role in their own health and health care. Challengeorganizers also wanted to increase awareness about the role that health IT can play inpeople’s lives. The competitions generated press and a lot of web traffic, which elevatedawareness of their Consumer eHealth, program and started a viral conversation about
the value of health IT. The competition both about the videos that were generated andabout getting the public talking about the role patients could play in their health byleveraging technology. Prize money helped to attract a diversity of people to participate
in these competitions — from a range of different ethnicities, ages, and geographies.
Participants: Members of the public and health care professionals were the targets ofthis competition. Registration was open for 10-weeks. Entrants: 21 eligible submissions.
Only about 1/4 of entrants were teams, the rest were individuals.
Timeline:
Solicitation Opened – 8/10/2012
Solicitation Closed – 10/19/2012
Winners Announced – 11/13/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: ONC leveraged its communication
channels, including Buzz Blog; an email mailing list; and social media, such as targeted
outreach to influencers, hackathon organizers, and developer communities on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Google Groups, and Meetup. The competition’s partner,
Script Your Future, conducted outreach to member organizations and to pharmacy
schools to support the competition. Newsletters and targeted emails were sent to morethan 300,000 registered users in the ChallengePost network. Weekly/bi-weekly targetedemails were sent to the registrants and followers, providing reminders on important52

dates and tips on getting started. One lesson learned is to try to time submission period
to correspond with dates in which potential participants will be the most engaged (ex.
when pharmacy schools are in session).
Incentives: $7,500 total: $3K for first place, $2K for second place; $1K for third place;$500 for two Honorable Mentions; and $500 for a Popular Choice award.
Evaluation: A three-person panel evaluated submissions. Each submission was
evaluated on a scale of 1-5 on each of the following criteria: 1) Quality of the idea; 2)
Implementation of the idea, and 3) Potential impact on health IT adoption.
Partnerships: Script Your Future
Resources: 20% of 1 FTE federal person to oversee the contract and assist withmarketing and outreach support for each competition, including the recruitment ofpartners. Contract support provided by RTI, who sub-contracted to ChallengePost.
Results: The window for submissions was still open at the end of FY 2012, socompetition results will be reported in the FY 2013 prizes report to Congress.
4.9. Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators App Challenge
Overview: The HHS Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) and
ONC challenged teams of developers and health professionals to co-design anapplication that will be used to help solve one or more of their Nation’s high-priority
health problems as part of HHS’s Healthy People 2020 initiative.44
Website:http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/healthy-people-2020-leading-healthindicators-app-challenge/
Problem Statement: The challenge aimed to address one or more of the 12 leading
health indicator (LHI) topics by encouraging health professionals to work with
developers in designing an application that could be used to address the indicators at
the community level. To enter the competition, participants had to create an applicationthat makes health indicators customizable and easy to use.
Goal: Solve a health problem(s)44 http://www.healthypeople.gov

53

Why a Prize as Preferred Method: A prize competition was developed in order toencourage ideas about how leading health indicators can be addressed in innovative
ways and to inspire quick responses from software application developers.
Participants: The challenge aimed to mobilize developers while also engaging healthprofessionals and stakeholders through a collaborative, co-designing process. Subject
matter experts with an idea for an app were encouraged to reach out to developers anddesigners to turn their ideas into a reality. There were 16 final submissions. Most entries
represented a company, and the winning teams ranged from 2-6 team members.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 10/31/2011
Solicitation Close – 03/09/2012
Winners Announced – 3/30/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: ODPHP conducted outreach via Healthy
People 2020 e-blasts, Twitter, and LinkedIn. ODPHP and ONC worked with Health 2.0 toreach out to the developer community via Health 2.0's outreach channels. Challengeorganizers also reached out to academia and engaging students or young developers.
HHS hosted a one-hour Webinar for interested participants to learn more about
challenge requirements and criteria.
Incentives: An opportunity to provide an app demo at the 2012 National Health
Promotion Summit. $15,000 total cash prizes were allocated through a sub-contract.
Evaluation: The prize competition utilized the following judging criteria: easy access;platform neutrality; user appeal; innovation of design; broad applicability; integration ofhealth data; evidence of co-design and collaboration, and accessibility.
Partnerships: ODPHP and ONC had a subcontract with Health 2.0 to administer thechallenge.
Resources: ONC provided $15K to Health 2.0 to pay for administering and marketing thechallenge to developers and stakeholders. ODPHP provided $15K honorariums thatallowed the winners to come to the National Health Promotion Summit in April 2012 todemo their app among stakeholders.
Results: The prize competition advanced the main purpose of the leading healthindicators, which is to communicate the nation's high-priority health issues, and actions
that can be taken to address them. The challenge provided visibility around this set ofindicators, and encouraged Healthy People stakeholders to start problem-solving by
thinking about creative solutions to addressing important health issues. The final three54

winners were Community Commons, PhenotypeIT, and Trilogy45. The First Place
Community Commons application offers an interactive mapping, networking, andlearning utility to leaders from community to national levels. The application seeks tohelp create informed, healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities. Key features
include an interactive initiatives map and an array of starter maps tools that to track
place-based around the country.
4.10.

Beat Down Blood Pressure Video Challenge

Overview: ONC hosted this video competition to encourage members of the public toshare their personal stories about how they are using health IT to manage high bloodpressure and to crowd-source stories about which tools that prevent or manage highblood pressure.
Website:http://bloodpressure.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: Participants were asked to make a video describing how they use
health IT or consumer e-health tools to prevent or manage high blood pressure.
Individuals and teams who comply with rules were eligible to participate. There wereseveral categories and associated prize money. There were three categories for
consumers to enter using health IT for: (1) monitoring; (2) taking meds; and (3)preventing high blood pressure. Plus, there were two categories with prizes for healthcare providers to enter: (1) provider monitoring; and (2) provider medication
management.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Challenge organizers wanted to crowd-sourcecompelling personal stories from the public that could potentially motivate and inspireothers to adopt health IT and eHealth tools to be more engaged with their health careprovider and to take a more active role in their own health and health care. Challengeorganizers also wanted to increase awareness about health IT.
Participants: The competition was aimed at all Americans, although challenge organizers
suspected there would be greater interest from individuals who have a personalconnection to high blood pressure — either themselves or a family history of dealing
with the disease. Challenge organizers received 14 eligible submissions — only one teamentered, the rest were individuals. Prize money helped to attract a diversity of people toparticipate from a range of different ethnicities, ages, and geographies.
45 http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/healthy-people-2020-leading-health-indicators-

app-challenge/

55

Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 3/28/2012
Solicitation Close – 5/16/2012
Winners Announced – 6/15/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Newsletters and targeted emails tomore than 300,000 registered users in the ChallengePost network. Targeted outreach
via email and social media channels to influencers, hackathon organizers, and developer
communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Google Groups, and Meetup.
Weekly/bi-weekly targeted emails to the registrants and followers, providing reminders
on important dates and tips on getting started.
Incentives: $4,500 available. Money to oversee the competitions and allocate prize
money was provided through a contract with RTI funded with FY12 funds.
Evaluation: Submissions were evaluated by a four-person panel. Each submission was
evaluated against criteria including quality of idea; implementation of idea, andpotential impact on health IT adoption.
Partnerships: American Heart Association and Million Hearts
Resources: 20% of 1 FTE federal person to oversee the contract and assist withmarketing and outreach support for each competition, including the recruitment ofpartners. Contract support provided by RTI, who sub-contracted to ChallengePost.
Results: Scripting, shooting, and editing a two-minute promotional video costs, on
average, about $10,000. The ONC Blood Pressure Video Challenge received 14 eligible
video submissions – potentially $140,000 worth of promotional material and 31 times
the $4,500 in prize money awarded. The attention received, both mainstream andwithin the participating communities, elevated awareness of the Consumer eHealthprogram and started a viral conversation about the value of health IT. The challenge
received hundreds of social media mentions as well as mainstream media exposure.
There were nearly 19,000 page views, over 7,000 site visits, nearly 1,500 votes cast for
submissions to determine the Popular Choice Award winner, 593 followers, 81"Accepted the Challenge" to receive submitter updates, 14 eligible video submissions,and 5 winners. This impact helps advance ONC's goal of increasing consumer awarenessabout the value of health IT and driving greater adoption and use of eHealth. The
winning videos combined were viewed over 1,735 times.
4.11.

Healthy New Year Challenge

Overview: This challenge was a call for ordinary Americans to create short videos that
captured their New Year’s resolution and how they plan to leverage technology to56

achieve their goal. The purpose of the video competition is to crowd-source personal
stories from the public to motivate and inspire others to adopt and use health IT.
Website:http://healthynewyear.challenge.gov
Problem Statement: Develop a short video focused on a health-related New Year’s
Resolution and describe how health IT will be used to help achieve that goal. In addition,
the video had to point to HealthIT.gov for more information.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize added an incentive for ordinary Americans
to share their personal story/testimonial about how they were leveraging health IT to
improve their health and health care. Challenge organizers wanted to crowd source
authentic stories from the public and engage the public in voting and sharing thesevideos to help generate greater awareness of the value of health IT and the role thateHealth can play in helping people take more control of their health.
Participants: Challenge organizers goal was to mobilize a diversity of participants from avariety of demographics and ethnicities. Anyone over the age of 18 years old was
eligible to participate. They received 47 eligible submissions from a diversity ofdemographics and ethnicities.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 1/9/2012
Solicitation Closed – 2/16/2012
Winners Announced – 3/22/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Issued an official HHS Press release toannounce this competition as the first in a series of health IT video competitions thatwould occur throughout 2012. Challenge organizers leveraged ONC communication
channels, including the Health IT Buzz Blog, the ONC List Serve (around 58K subscribers),
and social media outreach through Twitter to mobilize participation. In addition,
ChallengePost also conducted its own outreach to followers of its other competitions.
There were over 100,000 page views throughout the competition period; more than
25,000 site visits; greater than 10,000 votes cast for submissions to determine thePopular Choice Award winner; 1,042 followers of the competition; 111 "Accepted theChallenge" to receive submitter updates; 47 eligible video submissions; and 7 winners.
Incentives: $2000 - 1st, $1000 - 2nd, $500-3rd, $250 - Honorable Mention (2), $750 Popular Choice; FY12 funds supported a contract to administer these challenges.

57

Evaluation: Judges evaluated each submission based on the quality of the idea, theimplementation of the idea, and the potential impact on health IT adoption.
Partnerships: None
Resources: 1 FTE dedicated about 20% of her time to oversee the video competition
series throughout 2012. A contract was awarded to RTI for administering thecompetitions, which included prize money. RTI sub-contracted to ChallengePost.
Results: This video competition helped increase awareness about how consumers canleverage health IT to accelerate and support greater engagement in their health andhealth care. This competition generated over 100K views and impressions to the site aswell as a number of press related articles in the trade publications. The 2nd place
winning video has been used on multiple occasions by senior level ONC staff inpresentations and has received rave reviews. Scripting, shooting, and editing twominute promotional videos costs, on average, about $10,000. The ONC Health New Year
Video Challenge received 47 eligible video submissions – potentially $470,000 worth ofpromotional material and 94 times the $5,000 in prize money awarded. The winning
videos combined were viewed over 4,438 times.
4.12.

Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge

Overview: The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) andthe National Institutes of Health (NIH) challenged teams of undergraduate students todesign and build innovative solutions to unmet health and clinical problems. Entries
were solicited in three challenge categories, diagnostics; therapeutics; and technology,
to aid underserved populations and individuals with disabilities. The winning team ineach category received a $10,000 prize, and was honored at an award ceremony during
the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society in Atlanta, GA. In eachcategory, challenge organizers also identified two honorable mentions with noaccompanying monetary prize. The goals of the challenge were to: (1) provide
undergraduate students valuable experiences such as working in teams, identifying
unmet clinical needs, and designing, building and debugging solutions for such openended problems; (2) generate novel tools to improve healthcare, consistent with NIBIB’s
purpose to support research, training, dissemination of health information, and otherprograms with respect to biomedical imaging and engineering; and (3) highlight andacknowledge accomplishments of undergraduate students. DEBUT is the only
competition focused on biomedical design and open only to undergraduate students.
Website:debut.challenge.gov
Problem Statement: The problem addressed by the challenge was the design ofinnovative solutions to unmet health and clinical problems in three categories:
58

diagnostic devices and methods; therapeutic devices and methods; and technology toaid underserved populations and individuals with disabilities. Teams composed of atleast 3 undergraduate students in Biomedical Engineering and related fields were
eligible to compete with original designs developed solely by them. The entries were
judged on the significance of the problem addressed, impact on potential users,
innovativeness of design, and the evidence of a working prototype.
Goal: Improved service delivery; public education; and engagement of teams ofundergraduate students in open-ended biomedical design projects.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: The prize mechanism was used as a complement toother mechanisms already used by their agency, to directly engage and excite students.
Participants: The targeted participants were undergraduate students in Biomedical
Engineering and related fields. Challenge organizers received entries from 61 student
teams made up of a total of 284 students from 39 different universities.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 1/3/2012
Solicitation Close – 6/2/2012
Winners Announced – 7/31/2012
Award Ceremony – 10/26/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Agency website, Challenge.gov, direct emails to Biomedical Engineering Departments, listserv, press release, and word of
mouth.
Incentives: $10,000 cash prize purse, along with up to $2,000 reimbursement to travel
to award ceremony for the winner in each of the three categories. Also, two honorable
mentions in each of three challenge categories.
Evaluation: Nine judges from the NIH with relevant backgrounds evaluated the entries
for significance of the problem addressed, impact on potential users, innovative natureof design, and the evidence of a working prototype.
Partnerships: Challenge organizers have collaborated with the Biomedical Engineering
Society to incorporate an award ceremony for their challenge within their annual
meeting and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) toannounce DEBUT to their stakeholders via their websites and listservs.
Resources: Agency resources directed to the challenge, other than the cash prizes
described above, consist of personnel, including the Challenge Manager; the seniorleadership of NIBIB who provide guidance; scientific staff who contribute to the59evaluation of the entries; and technical staff who manage the website. Funding forexecution of the challenge was allocated under NIBIB’s appropriation account.
Results: DEBUT generated a lot of excitement among Biomedical Engineering
departments and students, as well as those in life sciences, and other areas ofengineering and computer science. Challenge organizers received 61 entries from 39
different universities with 284 students involved in the projects submitted. Most of theentries were of very high quality. In addition to engaging students in increasingly
sophisticated design projects, the challenge served to introduce the next generation of
biomedical engineers to the NIBIB.
4.13.

Now Trending: #Health in My Community

Overview: Studies show that social media trends can be powerful indicators ofcommunity health issues. With early identification, health officials can respond quickly
and educate the public on how to protect their health and minimize the spread of thedisease, therein enhancing individual and community resilience and potentiallypreventing a public health emergency, such as a pandemic. The Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) challenged participants, fromuniversity students to large companies, to create a web-based application that analyzes
open source Twitter data for health topics and delivers “Top 5 Trending Illnesses”
outputs for both a specified geographic area and the national level. This challenge wascreated in response to a request from state and local health officials to have an easy-touse application that makes social media a useful information source for health.
Website:http://challenge.gov/HHS/334-now-trending-health-in-my-community
Problem Statement: Studies are showing that trending topics on social media can serveas an early indicator and warning of emerging health issues within a community. This
challenge offered the opportunity for an individual or team to showcase their skills at
the national level while helping to advance the field of health analytics. Specifically, thischallenge asked participants to create a web-based application that analyzes open
source Twitter data for health topics and delivers “Top 5 Trending Illnesses” outputs forboth a specified geographic area and the national level.
Goal: Improve health surveillance and situational awareness.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Due to the focus of the challenge being a newer areaof study, ASPR believed that a challenge would be a good way to be able to tap into
innovative minds outside of traditional contracting routes in order to create a useful andforward thinking tool for health officials.

60

Participants: ASPR hoped to have a variety of entrants to this challenge, from academia
to companies to private citizens. The competition had 33 total entries with teams andindividuals that came from all different backgrounds. Thirteen entries were fromcompanies (both large and small), ten were from academia, six were private individuals,
and four were private teams. The entries were from all areas of the country.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 3/16/2012
Solicitation Close – 6/1/2012
Winners Announced – 9/13/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: ASPR used a multifaceted marketingplan that included social media, email, presentations before key stakeholder and target
participant groups, and outreach through HHS leadership. Social media and referral
from friends/colleagues turned out to be the most successful outreach methods.
Incentives: App developer presentation at the ASPR FUSION Bring Your Own Data
Citizen Science Conference; $21,000 in prize money; $1,000 toward travel to conference
from ASPR OPEO operating budget.
Evaluation: ASPR used a panel of technical advisors to initially review the entries. These
advisors represented all the areas that this competition touched: health, social media,
and technology. The technical advisors reviewed the entries and provided their
feedback to ASPR for consideration. Participant entries were judged on theirapplication’s accessibility from multiple platforms and for users of all ability levels, theapplication’s innovation, user interface, and potential to impact health situationalawareness. The challenge judge, Dr. Nicole Lurie, selected the ultimate winner.
Challenge organizers felt the use of technical advisors form specific industries was aneffective way to approach a competition that has a reach into multiple disciplines.
Partnerships: None
Resources: The competition was created and administered by the Fusion Cell, an officewithin ASPR. This required the full time efforts of one employee (Challenge Manager)
and part time efforts of two others in the office. To assist with challenge management,
the services of MetroStar Systems, Inc. were procured via the GSA 541.4G schedule.
Results: Since the close of the competition, the winning technology has been used byhealth departments from the local to the Federal level. State and local departments
have used the website and its information to inform the health situational awareness of
their populations, as an indication of where public health messaging is needed, and tobuild a baseline of health information in social media for better identification of
anomalies in data. At the Federal level, the website was used in both the Hurricane Isaac
and Hurricane Sandy response in order to track health trends in affected populations.
61

4.14.

2012 Surgeon General’s Video Contest: Tobacco- I’m Not Buying It

Overview: The Surgeon General’s (SG) Video Contest for Youth and Young Adults invited
young Americans to speak up about tobacco and tell us why they are “not buying it.” Inconjunction with the 2012 Surgeon General’s Report, “Preventing Tobacco Use among
Youth and Young Adults”, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) challenged youth aged
13-17 and young adults ages 18-25 to develop original videos that featured one or moreof the report findings.
Website:http://2012sgr.challenge.gov/ or
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2012/contest/
Problem Statement: Tobacco use by youth, teens, and young adults remains shockingly
high in the United States. The 2012 Surgeon General’s Report highlighted the healthimpacts of tobacco use and how the tobacco industry targets youth through advertising,promotional activities, and manipulation of peer group influences.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Using a prize competition provided the ability topromote the 2012 SG’s report in a way that engaged the target audiences where andhow they communicate: online, via social networks, and through user-generated
content like video. Youth and young adults are the leading creators and viewers of
online video content, and the challenge allowed the CDC to disseminate key messages
from the SG’s report through peer-to-peer communication. Over 80% of social media
users trust their peers more than they do a company or brand so incentivizing youth
people to learn about the findings in the report and communicate the key messages intheir own voice and style was a must for this report focused solely on youth and young
adults. The winning videos continue to be featured, viewed, and shared from the CDC’s
website and social media profiles including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Participants: Youth and young adults, ages 13-25. OSH received a total of 85 video
submissions, of which 63 met the challenge criteria.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 3/8/2012
Solicitation Close – 4/22/2012
Winners Announced – 5/30/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: OSH engaged youth advocacy partners
and the general public through traditional and social media channels to encourage
submissions and voting for the finalists in each category.

62

Incentives: Winning videos were announced by U.S. Surgeon General and promoted on
YouTube and CDC.gov. A total of $10,000 was divided among the 4 categories. A $1,000
grand prize and three $500 runner-up prizes were awarded for the middle/high schoolcompetition (both English and Spanish categories) and the young adult/college
competition (both English and Spanish categories). Upon selection of the winning videos
by an expert panel, all 10 winning videos were featured on CDC’s website, promoted via
earned and social media and live on CDC’s YouTube channel.
Evaluation: Submissions were initially screened for the required criteria, described
below, by a panel of CDC staff. The eligible videos were then uploaded to YouTube, andthe general public voted for their favorites in the four (two age-based categories forboth English and Spanish submissions) categories based on the following challenge
criteria: creativity; use of the one or more key SG Report findings; and use or inclusionof the official SGR website. The top 10 submissions in each category from the public
voting were then judged by an expert panel made up of Federal and national tobacco
prevention and control partners.
Partnerships: Key partnerships were leveraged to ensure the success of the Surgeon
General’s Video challenge. Officially, challenge organizers worked closely with theSurgeon General’s office and tobacco prevention and control partners and grantees toengage youth advocacy groups in their states and communities. Non-traditional partners
played a key role in the success of the challenge, as challenge organizers engaged
educational institutions, youth ministries, and other youth groups across the country.
This outreach to non-traditional partners to promote the challenge resulted in an
increased number of challenge entries.
Resources: Prize money was funded through an ICF contract. The total amount of prize
money allocated was $10,000, of which $9,000 in prize money was awarded. A minimal
amount of ICF contract hours were used to develop marketing materials.
Results: Through this competition, OSH was able to focus on youth tobacco prevention
and promote the release of the 2012 Surgeon General’s report. Using video as a creative
outlet, young people personally engaged with the report findings and educated theirpeers about the dangers of tobacco use. Winners were interviewed by local newspapers
and asked to perform their songs or show their videos at their local high schools,
churches, and events. Tobacco prevention and control partners with winners from theirstates have requested copies of their videos to show in presentations and for their web
and social media efforts. The U.S. Surgeon General has featured winning videos in her
talks and presentations about the 2012 Surgeon General’s report, since she officiallyannounced the winners during a live Twitter chat in May of 2012. All videos can beviewed from the CDC Office on Smoking and Health competition web page.46
46 http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2012/contest/#vote634.15.

Surgeon General’s Healthy Apps Challenge

Overview: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Healthy Apps Challenge encouraged thedevelopment and submission of technology applications that will complement andenhance two key aspects of the Surgeon General’s prevention agenda: The Surgeon
General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation47 and the nation’s first National Prevention
Strategy.48 Specifically, the challenge highlighted the ability of new technologies to: (1)provide health information tailored to the needs of the user; and (2) empower users(the general public) to regularly engage in and enjoy health-promoting behaviors related
to fitness and physical activity, nutrition and healthy eating, and physical, mental andemotional well-being. This challenge was conducted in collaboration with ONC.
Website: http://sghealthyapps.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: Non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer,
and chronic respiratory disease account for a large majority of deaths in the UnitedStates. The links between unhealthy behaviors (e.g., physical inactivity, unhealthyeating, tobacco use, excessive alcohol use) and these chronic illnesses have been wellestablished. The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation and the National
Prevention Strategy both highlight the importance of health behaviors in preventing
disease and creating a healthy and fit nation. The National Prevention Strategy further
envisions a prevention-oriented society where all sectors recognize the value of healthfor individuals, families, and society and work together to achieve better health for all
Americans. The National Prevention Strategy also emphasizes the importance ofempowering individuals with tools and information to make healthy choices and shifting
the focus of the nation’s health to prevention and integrated wellness (i.e., physical,
behavioral, social, and emotional health), rather than focusing primarily on illness anddisease. National public health recommendations and guidelines currently exist forphysical activity;49 nutrition,50 and overall health and wellness.51 Yet, currently,
approximately 40 percent of American adults report that they do not engage in any
leisure-time physical activity, with less than half the population meeting public healthrecommendations for physical activity. In 2009, fewer than 1 in 10 Americans included
the recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables in their diet. Over one-third ofAmericans are currently obese. Research also finds that sleep health contributes toobesity and disease, but 40 percent of Americans report unintentionally falling asleep
during the day at least once in the preceding month.
47 http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/initiatives/walking/index.html
48 http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/initiatives/prevention/strategy/national-prevention-

strategy-fact-sheet.pdf
49 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans: http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/
50 MyPlate: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
51 Healthy People 2020: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/default.aspx

64

Goal: Encourage the development (by innovators) and use (by everyday Americans) ofconsumer-facing technology to create a healthy and fit nation.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: A competition offers an excellent way to reach thepeople and businesses that are involved in application development and to encouragethem to submit their apps for evaluation. The built-in publicity and organization
provided through the Challenge.gov site means that the resources of a small office could
be maximized. Challenge organizers’ office has no available resources to offer prize
money, so the attraction for those who entered was the publicity involved.
Participants: Developers, designers, and entrepreneurs. 56 teams submitted apps
ranging from those help individuals to track their health promoting behaviors to locatorsthat identify services that can improve health or reinforce healthful outcomes.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 12/6/2011
Solicitation Closed – 12/31/2011
Winners Announced – 2/22/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: Social media (Twitter) and outreach to
new media community through promotion at conferences and in keynote speeches.
Incentives: No cash prize purses were offered for this competition. Winners and thosehighly recommended are highlighted in media release (February 17, 2012) and on the
Surgeon General’s website.52
Evaluation: In the first round, ONC contractors assessed the eligibility of submissions on
the basis of essential requirements: acceptable platform; functionality; available free;
no requirements for additional purchases or equipment. In the second round ofevaluations, each app was evaluated by at least two people from within HHS with
relevant technical and policy expertise. The top 15 submissions were then sent to highprofile internal and external assessors for evaluation; again, each application received
two separate evaluations. The stringent HHS requirements imposed on external judges
really precluded their use in the formal sense.
Partnerships: None

52 http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/pressreleases/sg_healthy_app_challenge-

winners.html

65Resources: The only costs incurred by the Office of the Surgeon General under thisChallenge were those for the Federal Register Notice and the time of a senior policy
staff person. Additional resources and time were provided by ONC through i2.
Results: 72 eligible entries were received, and mostly of high standard. The Surgeon
General’s ability to embrace new technologies, use them to encourage people to be
more engaged in healthy activities, and show how they can help people make healthy
choices all help drive awareness of key OSG and HHS initiatives such as prevention,
obesity, tobacco, healthy eating, and physical activity. The winning app in one category
needed to addresses both exercise and healthy eating. The winning Lose It! app helps
users achieve diet and exercise goals by setting a daily calorie budget and recording
food intake and exercise to meet that budget. Users can invite friends to view logs on
Facebook to boost motivation and encourage one another. Two other apps in thiscategory received high marks. Fit Friendzy is an app that encourages everyone to be
more active by highlighting the benefits of not just traditional exercise, but also of tasks
like gardening, dancing, housecleaning, and snow shoveling, allowing users to challengethemselves or join in challenges with friends. There is also the option to share exercise
data with health care providers. The MapMyFitness app encompasses both fitness andnutrition education, using built-in GPS of mobile devices to track fitness activities. Users
can establish a training log, record activity, keep track of calories consumed, and share
information with friends. The winner in a second category needed to encourage people
to develop healthy habits, make positive changes in their lives, and stick with them. The
winning Healthy Habits app recognizes that good health is not just about keeping active
and eating healthily, but also about getting a good night’s sleep, thinking positively, andspending time with family and friends. It also addresses health issues such as smoking,wearing sunscreen, taking time for creative activities, and reducing stress. Users canchoose which healthy habits to track. Two additional apps focused on children’s healthreceived high marks. Max’s Plate is an app that educates young children and theirparents about healthy eating and provides a fun and entertaining way to learn about
good nutrition. Short Sequence: Kids’ Yoga Journey is an app that has simple instructions
for yoga poses for children and beautiful illustrations.
4.16.

Seeing My World through a Safer Lens Video Challenge

Overview: In commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the CDC National Center for
Injury Prevention and Control (Injury Center), challenge organizers hosted a video
competition to answer the question, "What does Injury and Violence Prevention Look
Like in My Community?" The "Seeing My World through a Safer Lens" video competition
asked injury and violence professionals, students, and the general public to create ashort video that shows injury and violence prevention in their neighborhood,community, state, or region. This competition provided a community/local perspective
on prevention of the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 44. By
drawing attention to how others are working in their communities to prevent violence
and injuries, challenge organizers can change the perspective that injuries are not just66

random “accidents,” but rather a preventable public health issue. The "Seeing My Worldthrough a Safer Lens" video competition asks injury and violence professionals,
students, and the general public to create a short video that shows injury and violence
prevention in their neighborhood, community, state, or region.
Website:saferlens.challenge.gov
Problem Statement: Through personalized videos, challenge entrants showed how
proven prevention strategies are being implemented in various forms of communities.
By showcasing the winning videos in each category of submission (Student View,
General Public View, and Injury and Violence Professional View), the challenge was
highlighted steps for injury and violence prevention. The participants were asked tocreate a 90 second video that answered the question, “What does injury and violence
prevention look like in my community?” Entrants were required to choose from aselected list of injury and violence topics to showcase one prevention strategy or the
impact of injuries or violence where they live.
Goal: Public education
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: In order to reach the general public population andengage students, a small cash prize ($500/ category) was offered to incentivize
populations that are not already engaged in public health conversations around violence
and injury prevention. In order to gain a broader perspective from local injury andviolence professionals that do not have the means or programs to compete forstructured contracts, they were also eligible for a cash prize.
Participants: The “Seeing My World through a Safer Lens” video competition reached
out to partner organizations, violence and injury prevention professionals, student
organizations, and the general public for submissions into the competition. In total there
were 54 submitted videos, 25 of which adhered to all of the rules and video eligibility
criteria by the final submission date. The final 25 videos were judged in three categories
violence and injury prevention professionals (10 videos), students (9 videos), andgeneral public (6 videos).
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 5/1/2012
Solicitation Close – 7/31/2012
Winners Announced – 9/10/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: The promotion of the “Seeing My Worldthough a Safer Lens” video competition included: social media outreach; listserv and
GovD email announcements to key partners and constituents; online promotion; anddirect outreach to partner organization for inclusion in their websites and67

announcements. Other organizations and student affiliates were solicited for assistancein promotion, such as APHA student organizations and national schools of public health.
Incentives: Each submission category (injury and violence prevention professional,
student, and general public) had an award of $500; $1,500 in total.
Evaluation: The submissions from the video competition were judged by a panel of 12
judges, consisting of CDC Injury Center leadership, topic-specific subject matter experts,
communications staff, and leaders in partner agencies (the Safe States Alliance andNational Public Health Information Council). These judges scored each video against theweighted judging criteria (creativity, use of injury or violence prevention topic,
communication of positive prevention message, length, and audio and video quality).
Partnerships: No formal partnerships were initiated for the “Seeing My World through a
Safer Lens” challenge. However, a number of grantees and partners agreed to sharemessaging and promotion of the competition.
Resources: Funds were allocated from program funds dedicated to activities forcommemoration of the Injury Center’s 20th anniversary.
Results: The goal of the “Seeing My World through a Safer Lens” video competition is toincrease public education about how violence and injuries are preventable. As a leading
cause of death for people under the age of 44, the competition aimed to allow people tosee how people are implementing scientifically-based prevention strategies where they
live, work, or play. The video competition resulted in advancing the Injury Center’svision of preventing violence and injuries and their consequences, by moving fromscience into action. By bringing together a diverse group of people, invested in stopping
injuries and violence and their associated consequences, the video competition
succeeded in showing that CDC’s science-based approaches can be implemented at any
level, within any environment. These winning videos will be used as examples of how
digital technology, social media, and social sharing can set an example for positive
communications messaging around injury and violence topic areas.
4.17.

Million Hearts Caregiver Video Challenge

Overview: CDC and Prevention and the Million Hearts™ initiative invited family
caregivers to participate in a video competition that offered $1,000 in prize money.
Million Hearts™ is a five-year initiative launched by the Department of Health andHuman Services with a goal of preventing one million heart attacks and strokes in the
United States over the next five years. CDC and Million Hearts™ invited people who help
to prevent or control high blood pressure or maintain the heart health of a loved one toshare their stories of care giving by creating short, original videos. The videos showed
the variety of ways a caregiver contributes to another person’s heart health andprovided helpful tips related to high blood pressure prevention and control. The video68

challenge engaged the caregiver community and promoted heart disease prevention
through blood pressure control, medication adherence, and lifestyle changes.
Website:http://millionhearts.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: Heart attack and stroke are the first and fourth leading causes ofdeath in the United States. High blood pressure, one of the major risk factors for heartdisease, can be prevented and controlled. Family caregivers play an important role inhelping their loved ones prevent and control high blood pressure. The competition
invited family caregivers to share their stories of care giving by creating original,
compelling videos that are less than two minutes long. The videos were required toinclude a description of how the caregiver contributes to another person's heart healthand helpful tips related to high blood pressure prevention or control.
Goal: Public education to raise awareness of the role of caregivers and family members
in preventing and controlling high blood pressure.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: In the area of health, video competitions function as atool to promote interest and engagement in public health topics. They drive the public
to present creative ideas and innovative solutions while raising awareness andeducating audiences on a public health issue. The competition was a tool for Million
Hearts™ to use to reach out to and interact with a key audience through a new,compelling mechanism not yet used by their initiative.
Participants: CDC hoped to mobilize family caregivers. This challenge received two
eligible submissions: one from Chicago, Illinois and one from Henderson, Nevada.
Timeline:
Solicitation Open – 7/16/2012
Solicitation Close – 8/31/2012
Winners Announced – 10/8/2012
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: CDC used the following methods tomarket the video challenge: weekly social media posts on CDC’s and Million Hearts’™
Facebook and Twitter accounts, two CDC Features on CDC.gov home page, a Federal
Register Notice published on July 9, a Million Hearts’™ web site home page posting,
CDC’s GovDelivery e-mail listserv, and postings on video competition databases(onlinevideocontests.com, filmthenext.com). Million Hearts™ also encouraged theirmajor partners, American Heart Association and Administration on Aging, among others,
to promote the competition through their social media accounts and blog web sites.
Various health-related blogs published content describing the challenge and leading the
public to the challenge web site. There are many likely factors that may havecontributed to low participation, such as promotion efforts that did not reach the target69audience, an insufficient submission period of six weeks, and discouraging criteria andstandards for submissions for amateur video producers.
Incentives: The winning videos were promoted through CDC and Million Hearts social
media channels. $1,000 total cash prizes funded by the CDC Foundation, an
independent, non-profit organization, donated all prize money to CDC via the Outreachand Partnership Fund.
Evaluation: A panel of three judges evaluated the videos by scoring each against criteria
including appropriateness, storytelling, quality of video, and potential to impact others.
Partnerships: Million Hearts™ reached out to their major public and non-profit partners
for help in promoting the competition on their social media outlets and web sites. Many
nonprofit, federal, and state health agencies shared social media posts on Facebook andTwitter, or shared information about the competition through blogs and web sites. CDC
also partnered with the CDC Foundation, which donated prize money.
Resources: Some personnel time. Prize purse was donated by the CDC Foundation,
graphics were created in-house, and free marketing channels were used.
Results: The competition web site and subsequent online marketing materials were
written to present the requirements for submissions, to encourage participation, and toeducate the public on the Million Hearts™ initiative and heart disease prevention.
Results from tracking social media activity show these posts led over 2,500 people tothe competition web site throughout the submission period from July 16 to August 31,
2012. These social media messages, viewed by over a hundred thousand “followers” of
CDC social media, were often shared by other Federal agencies and national partners
who have thousands of their own followers. Despite the low number of submissions, thewinning videos successfully provided tips on how to prevent and control high bloodpressure and described the role of a family caregiver. The first place winner, inparticular, used an innovative approach through motion info-graphics to describe how acaregiver helps a loved one maintain their heart health.

5. Department of Labor
5.1. Equal Pay App Challenge
Overview: The National Equal Pay Task Force and DOL engaged innovators, educators,
and IT developers to help build innovative tools to educate the public about the gender
pay gap and promote equal pay for women.
Website:http://equalpay.challenge.gov/
70Problem Statement: Nearly 50 years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act,
women are still paid less than their male counterparts for doing comparable jobs. Thispay gap means that each time the average woman starts a new job, she’s likely to startfrom a lower base salary, and that, over time, the pay gap between her and her malecolleagues is likely to grow. For the average working woman, the pay gap means she will
receive $150 less in her weekly paycheck, $8,000 less at the end of the year, and$380,000 less over her lifetime. For women of color and women with disabilities, thedisparity is even bigger.
Goal: DOL wanted to engage leaders in academia, non-profit organizations, industry
innovators, IT professionals, and other equal pay supporters to use publicly available
labor data and other online resources to educate users about the pay gap and develop
tools to promote equal pay. DOL’s four primary goals were to provide greater access topay data by gender, race, and ethnicity; provide tools for early career coaching; improveeducation on negotiation; and promote online mentoring.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: DOL employed a prize competition to tap into thepools of talented developers, educators, innovators, and industry leaders from acrossthe country who traditionally do not participate in Government IT development or
mission-specific exercises. Challenge organizers wanted to collaborate directly with newand established innovators that typically do not participate as traditional stakeholders.
Participants: DOL wanted to collaborate with people who participate in creating new,groundbreaking online platforms and technologies, and are experts in developing
mobile applications. The DOL Equal Pay App Challenge was supported by over 1,500
individuals, received 12 qualified submissions, and resulted in seven winners.
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: DOL utilized the Challenge.gov platform
to host and launch the DOL Equal Pay App competition. The Department used multiple
methods to market the challenge, including press releases and social media.
Additionally, DOL created a dedicated website, http://developer.dol.gov/, which housed
APIs, SDKs and sample code for multiple platforms to ensure developer success.
Incentives: All prizes offered to winners originated from non-Federal entities.
Evaluation: DOL’s evaluation process was composed of internal and external evaluation
panels and included five evaluation drivers: (1) Creativity, innovation, and ease of use;
(2) Promotion of access to important data and resources; (3) Usability by users withdifferent skill sets and language preferences; (4) Consideration of partnerships that will
ensure sustainability of the app; and (5) Ability to reach a variety of audiences.
Partnerships: The challenge was developed and executed through an internal
partnership among DOL component agencies. Private sector partners included Women71

Innovate Mobile, Carnegie Mellon University, Google, The Daily Muse, Salary.com,
Interview Street and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Resources: Resources used for the development, execution, and management of thecompetition included staff time.
Results: The Equal Pay App Challenge on Challenge.gov advanced DOL’s mission byleveraging existing program information, technology, and public innovation to raiseawareness on equal pay and provide effective tools for employers and employees. The
competition amplified the Equal Pay Taskforce’s mission on wage equality by expanding
the amount of quality online tools, effective messaging and partnerships with nontraditional stakeholders in the academic and digital spectrum. The competition wasfeatured on multiple media outlets including Forbes, The Daily Muse, New York Times,
and Sacramento Bee, in addition to other online publications and mainstream blogs.
5.2. Disability Employment App Challenge
Overview: The competition asked developers to help build innovative tools to improve
employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities.
Website:http://disability.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: Nearly twenty-two years after the passage of the Americans with
Disabilities Act and thirty-nine years after the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
– two of the most significant disability employment-related pieces of legislation in
American history – people with disabilities continue to be employed at much lower
levels than the general population. Not only do people with disabilities have asignificantly higher unemployment rate than the general population, they also have amuch lower labor force participation rate. According to the most recent data from the
Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (April 2012), people with disabilities
had a 20.3% labor force participation rate compared to 69.1% for their non-disabledpeers, and people with disabilities had an unemployment rate of 12.5% compared to
7.6% for their non-disabled peers. For minorities with disabilities, these disparities areeven greater. This represents a significant loss of willing and able talent to the American
workforce, loss of income for people without jobs, and economic loss to the country.
Goal: DOL wanted to leverage technology in innovative ways to promote recruitment
resources for employers, develop job-training and skill-building tools for job seekers,
facilitate employment-related transportation options, and expand web and Information
Communication Technology (ICT) accessibility.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: DOL employed a prize competition to tap into thepools of talented developers across the country that traditionally do not participate in72

government IT development or mission-specific exercises. Challenge organizers wanted
to collaborate directly with new and established innovators that typically do notparticipate as traditional stakeholders.
Participants: DOL wanted to collaborate with people who participate in creating new,groundbreaking online platforms and technologies, and are experts in developing
mobile applications. The DOL Disability Employment App Challenge was supported byover 2,400 individuals and received over 30 submissions.
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: DOL utilized Challenge.gov to host andlaunch the DOL Disability Employment App competition. The Department used multiple
methods to market the challenge, including press releases and social media via its Open
Government Blog and Facebook and Twitter accounts. DOL additionally created a
dedicated website, http://developer.dol.gov/, that housed APIs, SDKs and sample codefor multiple platforms to ensure developer success.
Incentives: Competition prizes were offered in monetary form and as invitations to the
FCC developer event, “Developing with Accessibility,” in Washington, DC on September
6 – 7th, 2012. The prizes awarded totaled $10,000: a first place prize of $5,000; a second
place prize of $3,000; and a third place prize of $2,000.
Evaluation: A two-phase judging process assessed submissions against several criteria:(1) alignment with mission, (2) creativity, (3) ease of use, (4) provided access toimportant data and resources, (5) attractive users with different skill sets and language
preferences, (6) accessibility, (7) partnerships, and (8) audiences targeted. The final
judging panel was made up of DOL, the Department of Education, Social Security
Administration, and private sector industry leaders including IBM, Craig Newmark, and
the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA).
Partnerships: The challenge was developed and executed through an internal
partnership between DOL component agencies. Challenge organizers also partneredwith the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Social Security Administration. Private
sector partners included IBM, ATIA, and Craig Newmark.
Resources: Resources used for the development, execution, and management of thiscompetition included staff time various DOL component agencies.
Results: The DOL Disability Employment App Challenge on Challenge.gov advanced
DOL’s mission by leveraging existing technology and public innovation to raise publicawareness about disability employment tools for employers and employees, including
employer compliance with federal workplace laws, speech augmentation tools, 508
compliant applications, and disability-focused job boards. Three prizes were awarded,
one in each of the following categories: innovation, public voting, and accessibility. A
description of each winner is below:
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




Innovation Award Winner: Access Jobs. Access Jobs is a job search portal specificallydesigned for job seekers with disabilities. The website implements usable
accessibility techniques, such as responsive design, which allow the website to beexperienced in the same way across all platforms.
The People’s Choice Award Winner: VoisPal – Speak as You Think! VoisPal is an
Android-based Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) app designed tohelp people with speech difficulties.
Above and Beyond Accessibility Award Winner: AccDC: Accelerated Dynamic
Content. AccDC is a scalable, cross-browser and cross-platform compatible Dynamic
Content Management System that automates the rendering of dynamic content toensure accessibility for screen reader and keyboard only users.

6. Department of State
6.1. Innovations in Arms Control Challenge
Overview: A smaller, faster-paced world is changing the security landscape, and thesechanges will bring with them new challenges and evolutions in current threats. To
respond to these changes, the Department of State must adapt instruments ofstatecraft to bring to bear the networks, technologies, and human potential of theirincreasingly inter-dependent and interconnected world. In this spirit, on August 28,
2012, the Department of State launched the Innovation in Arms Control
Challenge asking Americans: "How Can the Crowd Support Arms Control Transparency
Efforts?" Challenge organizers invited America to share their ideas on ways commonly
available technologies can support arms control policy. Challenge organizers see greatvalue in incorporating innovative ideas across the whole spectrum of their arms control
initiatives. As the Department of State looks to the future of arms control, new thinking
to face the challenges of the 21st century is vital to their success, keeping in mind the big
challenges that come about as challenge organizers move to reduce nuclear weapons tolower numbers, and look for ways to monitor smaller units of account, such as chemical
munitions in storage facilities.
Website:http://www.state.gov/t/avc/innovationcompetition/index.htm
http://challenge.gov/State/394-innovation-in-arms-control-challenge
Problem Statement: How Can the Crowd Support Arms Control Transparency Efforts?
This challenge asked for creative ideas from the general public to use commonly
available devices to help confirm whether states are complying with treaties orinternational arrangements addressing weapons and nonproliferation. Treaties orinternational arrangements addressing weapons, nonproliferation, and confidencebuilding measures are generally known as “arms control.” They are diplomatic tools thatgovernments use to regulate weapons (especially weapons of mass destruction), or to74increase transparency, predictability, and stability. These treaties or internationalarrangements support mutual security and stability in general, however, in somesituations one or more parties may be motivated to violate these arms control
provisions, commonly understood as “cheating.” This broad challenge question was an“Ideation Challenge,” formulated to obtain access to new ideas, similar to a global
brainstorm for producing a breakthrough idea or market survey which may include ideas
for a new product line, a new commercial application for a current product, or even a
viral marketing idea to recruit new customers. Solvers were asked to provide ideas that
included a description of the proposed mechanism or idea to support arms control
transparency efforts; rationale for why the proposed idea will work in the real world;
and any supporting information, publications, real-world use cases, or examples thatreinforce the validity of the proposed idea.
Goal: The primary objective of the challenge was to discover new approaches and ideas
on ways commonly available technologies can support arms control policy, to bolster
interest in the general public on arms control issues, and to stimulate useful outside
thinking that could provide additional transparency and information related tocompliance with arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament regimes.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Prize competitions can stimulate attention andencourage innovation in a highly leveraged and results-focused way. Incentives improve
the performance of problem-solvers and mobilize new talent and ideas.
Participants: This challenge asked for creative ideas from across the general public, fromgarage tinkerers and technologists, to gadget entrepreneurs and students, to support
the U.S. arms control and nonproliferation agenda. 565 registered solvers submitted 67
solutions. Of the solvers who registered, 24 were from universities including
Georgetown, MIT, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley,
Iowa State, and University of Michigan.
Although participation was limited to U.S. Citizens and permanent residents under theAmerica COMPETES authority, challenge organizers received a lot of interest andpositive feedback from foreign publics. While continuously working to achieve their
Department’s overall mission of international engagement, challenge organizers
discovered an inability to locate the appropriate authority to engage international
publics on prize incentive challenges. For future Department of State prize incentive
challenges, challenge organizers are considering using existing procurement or grantauthority language in order to carry out the Department of State’s overall mission ofengaging foreign publics while also soliciting innovative proposals that could aid the U.S.
government by providing additional transparency and information related tocompliance with existing or future arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament
regimes. An amendment to the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act could
help alleviate the restrictions on engaging foreign publics under the existing authority.

75This would facilitate the Department of State’s ability to reach out to an international
audience of potential competition participants.
Timeline:
Challenge Open – 08/28/12
Challenge Close – 10/26/12
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: On August 28, 2012, the U.S.
Department of State issued an official announcement on the Federal Register and sentout a press release on the Innovation in Arms Control Challenge. Rose Gottemoeller,
Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, also posted
about the challenge on the Department’s official blog and the White House’s Office of
Science and Technology Policy’s blog.53 These releases were further amplified throughvarious social media channels inside and outside the Administration. Acting Under
Secretary Gottemoeller participated in an interview with Popular Mechanics and CNN
about the competition and later received wide attention. The announcement of theState Department challenge was also picked up by regional television and newspaper
outlets, including the Washington Post.
Incentives: The awards will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by
the State Department. The total payout will be $10,000, with at least one award being
no smaller than $5,000 and no award being smaller than $1,000.
Evaluation: Solutions will be reviewed in two rounds of technical reviews. After
analyzing the technical reviews, finalists will be chosen by a small coordination groupbased on their composite weighted score. The Judging Criteria was organized into thefollowing three categories: applicability, feasibility, and supporting documentation.
Partnerships: None
Resources: The prize challenge was funded from the Department of State’s External
Research Board (REB) on behalf of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control andInternational Security.
Results: The competition was still open as of the end of FY 2012, so the final results ofthe competition will be reported in the FY 2013 prizes report to Congress. To date, theChallenge has brought more awareness of arms control issues to the American public,
particularly on the challenge’s focus on the applicability of commonly available devices
and social networking tools to arms control policy.

53

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/05/challengegov-two-years-and-200-prizes-later76

7. Small Business Administration
7.1. Small Business Week Video Contest
Overview: In celebration of National Small Business Week 2012, the SBA sought creative
videos from small businesses that showed how they had been assisted by an SBA
program or service (counseling, training, guaranteed loans, government contracts,
disaster recovery, etc.). The video competition showcased amazing small businesses
across the country. These businesses are creating jobs and the next big products thatwill help keep America competitive.
Website:http://smallbizvid.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: For most entrepreneurs and small businesses, the Federal
government has useful programs and services, but small businesses often do not knowthat these programs are available.
Goal: To educate the public about how SBA programs and services help entrepreneurs
and small business owners start, grow, and succeed.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: Through Challenge.gov, SBA was able to collect video
success stories at zero cost to the agency.
Participants: The competition was opened to SBA-assisted small businesses in the
United States and its territories including, but not limited to, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin
Islands and Guam. The business owner(s) must have been a U.S. citizen or permanent
resident and be at least 18 years old to enter and win. Small businesses must have met
SBA's size standards and must have used at least one SBA program or service.
Timeline: The challenge was launched on April 16, 2012. The video submission deadline
was May 15, 2012. The judging process was from May 16-19, 2012. The winners wereannounced and the challenge concluded on May 23, 2012.
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results:
SBA marketed the challenge successfully through social media (Twitter and Facebook),
mail marketing (GovDelivery), and press releases/news advisories.
Incentives: Winning videos were shown during a Google+ Hangout hosted by SBA andthe White House with SBA Administrator Karen Mills on May 23, 2012. The winners
were invited to participate in the Hangout with Administrator Mills.
Evaluation: SBA’s successful evaluation criteria included: length, format, educational
content, story, reference to SBA program or services, and originality.
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Partnerships: SBA and the White House cohosted the winners announcement.
Resources: There were no funding costs associated with this challenge. The resources
SBA used included staff time.
Results: The SBA received 103 video submissions. Of those 103 videos, 73 were eligible.
SBA posted the eligible videos at www.sba.gov/stories to illustrate to the public how
SBA programs and services help entrepreneurs and small businesses.
7.2. Apps for Entrepreneurs Competition
Overview: The Apps for Entrepreneurs Competition challenged individuals or teams tocreate apps to help small businesses and entrepreneurs navigate the Federal
government more efficiently.
Website:http://entrepreneurs.challenge.gov/
Problem Statement: For most entrepreneurs and small businesses, the Federal
government has useful programs and services, but it can be hard to identify, engage,and navigate Federal websites. Often, small businesses do not know that the Federal
government already offers a program that they would find useful. Entrepreneurs andsmall businesses need better tools to navigate the Federal government’s vast resources– including programs, services, and procurement opportunities. Eligible entrants wereasked to create apps to help small businesses and entrepreneurs navigate the Federal
Government more efficiently.
Goal: The Apps for Entrepreneurs Competition was an SBA initiative to help makeFederal government programs and information more useful to small businesses. The
Competition provided recognition to individuals or teams of individuals for developing
innovative applications designed for the Web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld
device, console, or any platform broadly accessible on the open internet that utilize data
which is freely available on Federal government websites.
Why a Prize as Preferred Method: For the SBA, it was important to test and validate thechallenge concept with open government data. While contracts and grants may havebeen great for targeted work, the challenge platform was seen as an opportunity toencourage innovation from the developer community on ideas that the SBA.gov team
could further develop into useful features for their current web properties.
Participants: The agency hoped to mobilize entrepreneurs to build apps that wererelevant to their own communities with business data. Geographic distribution ofsubmissions was broad. Generally, the participants were either independent, freelance
developers, or small firms that wanted to showcase their expertise.

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Timeline: Challenge opened 11/05/11; closed 11/20/11; winners announced 11/23/11
Solicitation and Outreach Methods and Results: The Agency used traditional marketing
channels/tactics – including blog posts, social media outreach, and press releases.
Additionally, SBA entered into a contract with a local firm to create a hackathon to bring
together developers to experiment with ideas for apps. SBA also worked with others in
the developer community to spread the word via email list and other relevant channels.
Incentives: There were seven prizes available: one $5,000 gift card; three $3,000 giftcards; and three $2,000 gift cards. The total value of the monetary prizes was $20,000.
Evaluation: The Judging panel was composed of 10 individuals with expertise intechnology, small business, and entrepreneurship from both the public and private
sectors. The Judging panel evaluated the screened submissions based these criteria: useof required data; technical implementation; mission and impact; and creativity.
Partnerships: None
Resources: Staff time, and about $50K in contractor resources, including the prize purse.
Results: The challenge roughly 30 valid submissions. The completion of the challenge
was a proof-of-concept exercise, where the SBA learned how to execute otherchallenges.

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APPENDIX 2: AGENCY PROGRAMS CONDUCTED UNDER AUTHORITIES OTHER THAN THE AMERICACOMPETES REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2010
This Appendix provides a summary of some prizes and challenges conducted in FY 2012
under agency prize authorities other than COMPETES and does not include any of themultiple prize competitions conducted under other authorities in FY 2012 or prior.
LIST OF CHALLENGES
8. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
8.1. Technology Demonstration: Sample Return Robot Challenge
8.2. Theoretical Challenge: Strain Measurement of Vectran and Kevlar
Webbing
8.3. Ideation Challenge: Big Data Challenge
8.4. Ideation Challenge: Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC)
8.5. App Development: Android Electrocardiography (ECG)
8.6. App Development: Planetary Data System Challenge
8.7. Apps Contest/Mass Collaboration: International Space Apps Challenge
8.8. Video Challenge: Venus Transit Video Time Capsule Challenge
8.9. Video Challenge/ Education Challenge: Zero Robotics Challenges
8.10. Education Challenge: NASA Great Moonbuggy Race
8.11. Education Challenge: NASA Student Launch Projects (SLP)
8.12. Education Challenge: Lunabotics Mining Competition
8.13. NASA Tournament Lab
8.14. NASA Innovation Pavilion
9. National Institute of Standards and Technology
9.1. NIST SHA-3 Hash Competition
10. Department of Defense
10.1. Army Challenge: Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge
10.2. Air Force Challenges: Fuel Scrubber; Grey Data; Durable Dielectrics on
Polycarbonate; Energetic Core-Nanocluster Production
10.3. DARPA Challenges: Cash for Locating and Identifying Quick Response; Shredder

8.1 Technology Demonstration: Sample Return Robot Challenge
The NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge called upon robotics innovators to build a
robot that could autonomously locate, identify, and collect a variety of samples andthen return the samples to a designated point without reliance on GPS or otherterrestrial navigation aids. Offering a prize permitted NASA to explore multiple solutions
and to pay only for achievement of the goals.

80Eleven teams registered to compete. Three were small robotics companies, two werefrom universities, and six were small teams of robotics enthusiasts. Competitors wererequired to demonstrate achievement of competition requirements according to therules. A judging team measured the robot sample collection and retrieval performancein person at the demonstration event.
The Challenge drew novel approaches from non-traditional sources. There were no
winners in 2012. The competition was also the cornerstone of a large-scale public
outreach effort that attracted over 7,000 guests to the competition and provided NASA
with the opportunity to educate the public on NASA robotics and Mars exploration
efforts. The competition documentary podcast has been downloaded over 500,000
times and continues to be rebroadcast on NASA TV and is accessible on many online
sources such as iTunes. The competition is being repeated in 2013.
8.2 Strain Measurement of Vectran and Kevlar Webbing
The NASA Strain Measurement of Vectran and Kevlar Webbing Challenge looked for a
new method to measure strain on Kevlar and Vectran straps in the 25 to 125°C range.
Inflatable structures are being researched as a means for long-duration humanhabitation in space. The structural restraint layers of the current designs are made fromstraps that are stitched together to form webbing. NASA performs creep tests (strain)
on webbing materials of woven Vectran and Kevlar straps. Currently, a photogrammetry
technique is used to determine the elongation of the test specimen. A photogrammetry
technique works well at room temperature for all the straps, but at elevatedtemperatures, the technique only works for some of the straps. Twisting and bulging of
the fibers on some samples causes the breakdown of the pattern used forphotogrammetry, which results in the loss of the strain data. A technique is needed toaccurately measure the strain in these samples, given the fiber movement. This
challenge was instituted under NASA’s contract with Innocentive. Offering a prize
permitted Innocentive to explore multiple solutions and to only pay for achievement of
successful solutions. Other approaches would have required selection and funding
based on proposals and would have provided no assurance that payment would result insuccessful demonstrations. Results will not be announced until early January 2013.
8.3 Big Data Challenge
The Big Data Challenge is applying the process of Open Innovation to the goal ofconceptualizing new and novel approaches to utilizing “Big Data” information sets
residing in various agency silos while remaining consistent with individual United Statesagencies missions related to the field of health, energy, and earth sciences. NASA iscollaborating with the National Science Foundation (NSF), Networking and Information
Technology Research and Development (NITRD), and the DOE’s Office of Science inbuilding publicly-accessible means to access multiple disparate government data
sources, some very large, to promote “Data to Knowledge to Action.” The first Big Data
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Challenge focused on cross cutting ideas and yielded 141 registrants, 16 total
submissions, and 5 winners at $750 each. Judges for these entries came from a diverse
expertise set including academia, the government and commercial companies. Eachwinner received a 30% bonus for using streaming data. The second Big Data Challenge
focused on energy data and yielded 54 registrants, 14 total submissions, and 3 winners
at $500 each. Judges for these entries came from a diverse set of places including
academia, the Federal government and non-profit entities. Each winner received a 30%
bonus for using streaming data. The third, ongoing Big Data Challenge is focusing onearth science data. It yielded 45 registrants and 8 total submissions.
8.4 Rice Business Plan Competition
NASA’s Human Health and Performance Directorate (HH&P) at Johnson Space Centerhas sponsored a $20,000 prize for the past five years at the Rice Business Plan
Competition, an internationally recognized student business plan competition held at
Rice University in Houston, Texas. Forty-two student teams enter the competition eachyear. The HH&P prize focuses on new and emerging health and performance based
technologies and it represents the recognition of the development of a new business,
small business innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit. Each company iscommercializing a health-related technology that will improve medical care capabilities
on Earth and have potential application to human spaceflight. The HH&P prize has gone
to Heart Sounds, Integrated Diagnostics, GlucoGo (subsequently named LyoGo),
Diagenetix, and Innovostics.
Heart Sounds is commercializing a technology that would allow the non-physician tomonitor heart beats and was focused on rural and third world country pre-natal care but
would have obvious application to spaceflight with non-physician crewmembers andautonomous healthcare required for exploration. Integrated Diagnostics is developing
and commercializing lab on chip technology that would allow multiple laboratory tests
to be done on a single sample in a very small compact analysis device with the target
market being the physician’s office, and portable diagnostics needs of rural healthcare
and third world countries with obvious application to the in-flight diagnostics during
current ISS missions as well as exploration. LyoGo is commercializing a technology thatin a single use administration device allows lyophilized drugs (dried to a powder form
which increases portability and shelf life) to be kept separate from the mixing solution
until the time of injection. This technology overcomes measurement and mixing error by
the operator or patient and is directly applicable to rural and third world country
healthcare and is of interest for exploration class spaceflight missions. LyoGo now has
Series A venture funding. Diagenetix, Inc. is a molecular diagnostics company thatdeveloped a platform enabling quick, gene-specific detection of pathogens without
expensive or complicated instrumentation, thereby increasing the accessibility ofdiagnostics. The gene dart technology is very promising for real-time identification ofbacterial pathogens on surfaces, water, etc. during spaceflight. Since this was developed
for agriculture, the company now has a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant.
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Innovostics is a for-profit social venture providing point-of-care diagnostic technologies
to save patient lives around the globe. Using a unique microfluidics platform and design,
tests will provide accurate, inexpensive, and rapid results with only a finger prick ofblood. They are currently developing the InfectDx, a diagnostic test to differentiate
between bacterial, viral, and parasitic infection.
Many ideation prizes focus on getting new ideas for existing problems. This prize
example is unique from many ideation competitions in that it leverages an existing
competition to draw entrepreneur’s attention to NASA problems. This competition is
not run on an online platform like many other ideation prizes; instead it involves inperson development and judging. The model of participating in existing business plancompetitions could be compared to and considered along with online crowdsourcing
approaches to identify new ideas and business plans through a prize competition.
8.5 Android Electrocardiography
The NASA Tournament Lab Mobile ECG Challenge asked competitors to design and builda mobile Android based ECG application capable of displaying and recording a 12 lead
ECG signal collected via a Bluetooth signal. ECG measurements are important indiagnostic and research areas of human health both on Earth and in space. In many
areas of the world and in space medical hardware is difficult to transport or obtain.
Thus, NASA challenged competitors to use existing, readily available hardware platforms
to develop a software application that would create a monitoring option without
needing new hardware. This was a unique challenge because is required a blend of
hardware and UI programming skills to participate. These combined skills sets can bedifficult to find. The prize approach used for this challenge found a total of 53
registrants. Through the challenge nine entrants — who had combined skills sets thatNASA might not traditionally have ready access to — provided 22 unique submissions.
There were 6 total winning entries from 4 unique submitters from 3 countries. NASA is
working to ready the winning solutions for Agency use.
8.6 Planetary Data System Challenge
The NASA Planetary Data System is an archive that hosts terabytes of valuable data fromhundreds of data sources and spans decades of research. Data is maintained by afederation of 10 teams organized into nodes across the United States. While PDS data isavailable publically through its various websites, effective use requires deep familiarity
with the data, data structure, and federated organization. In order to better realize thevalue of this national resource, PDS posted challenges through the NASA Tournament
Lab on TopCoder.com in 2011 to design and build a homogenous access layer that
better serves both scientists and citizens. The goals of the competition were to leverage
the new PDS data access layer to develop new applications that showcase valuable PDS
data and demonstrate how it could be used in scientific, educational, and social settings.

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This challenge produced Android, iPad, and iPhone applications. Two applications
leveraged PDS data for high school lessons, aligned to Core Curriculum standards, andone of these is an interactive Augmented Reality platform. The series also included two
applications developed by high school students, one of which combined PDS data withsocial network themes allowing individuals to see the data their friends are looking at,
and share it. The challenges enabled student engagement while producing applications
that were both fun to use and novel.
8.7 International Space Apps Challenge
The International Space Apps Challenge featured 71 challenges related to how NASA
explores space and improves life on Earth. The challenge was an international
hackathon-style event that took place over a 48-hour period in cities on all sevencontinents on the weekend of April 21, 2012.
The problem statements in open hardware, open software, data visualization, andcitizen science were developed from within NASA, from partner agencies andorganizations, and from public submissions. Teams were encouraged to submit
solutions to address any of the featured challenges, and 101 solutions were received at
the end of the 48-hour global event.
The goals of the International Space Apps Challenge were to:
1. Create new technologies and approaches that can solve some of the key challengesof NASA as well as making current efforts more cost-effective (e.g., conduct science,
forecast terrestrial and space weather, monitor climate change, understand earthscience applications, and support disaster response and recovery).
2. Exercise a government’s interest in using open data and technology, in partnershipwith others, to address global needs, and extend the use of space data andtechnology for additional applications.
3. Engage citizens in countries with little or no investments in space exploration tocontribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and codedevelopment.
4. Promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education byencouraging students from around the world to utilize open technology for solutions
to global challenges.
5. Encourage international partnership and mutual understanding.
6. Demonstrate a commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership.
The first International Space Apps Challenge offered seven challenges specific tosatellite hardware and payloads, including submissions from at least two commercialorganizations. These challenges received multiple solutions in the areas of satellite
tracking, suborbital payloads, command and control systems, and leveraging
commercial smartphone technology for orbital remote sensing. These were
enthusiastically embraced in the wider community, particularly among the Makers.
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The International Space Apps Challenge engaged a diverse group of people to contributetoward NASA’s objectives of expanding human knowledge of Earth and space, improving
spaceflight technology as well as making it more efficient, utilizing and extending NASA’s
scientific and engineering data and resources, and doing this in cooperation with othernations. The Challenge also invested in strengthening pockets of innovation,encouraging STEM utilization, and mobilizing these resources for the Administration’s
priorities. There were six winning apps, but the real “results” of the Challenge are a
2,000+ person community engaged in and excited about space exploration, thinking
creatively and technologically, and ready to apply that experience to challenges
identified by the agency, all at relatively low cost and on a short timeline.
8.8 Venus Transit Video Time Capsule Challenge
NASA challenged participants to use existing footage and create video time capsulesthat tell the story of this Transit to be used as a message to future citizens in 2117 as
they get ready to watch the next Venus Transit. The purpose of this competition was tocreate a 60 second video that combines provided footage of the 2012 Venus Transit
with original footage to tell an original and amazing story. The ultimate goal was to raiseawareness of the historical, educational, and scientific purpose of the last Venus Transitof this generation’s lifetime and to document, visually, this snapshot in time in order toprovide perspective on what it was like to see it on earth in 2012.
The final deliverable from this competition produced a high quality video that serves as
a video time capsule of the 2012 Venus. The first place video can be viewed here:
http://tongal.com/work/4rauhc.
8.9 Zero Robotics Challenges"Zero Robotics" (ZR) is an annual robotics programming competition where the robots
are Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES)
inside the International Space Station (ISS). Competitors learn, compete, and collaborate
in programming the SPHERES to accomplish specific missions designed by the Zero
Robotics Team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After several phasesof virtual competition, finalists are selected to compete in a live championship aboard
the ISS. An astronaut will conduct the championship competition in microgravity with alive broadcast. While there are no prizes (other than a trophy) for the middle school andhigh school student competitions, two prize-based Zero Robotics competitions wereconducted in 2012. First, the Zero Robotics Algorithm Challenges were open
competitions conducted to develop the 2012 Zero Robotics game. Second, apromotional video was crowd-sourced using the Tongal Platform. The resulting video
was propagated via social media and was the #7 viral video of the week.
The challenge of the ZR Algorithm Challenges was to build the Zero Robotics
infrastructure using TopCoder crowdsourcing competitions. At a high level, thedevelopment tasks undertaken using collaborative competition were: (a) integration of85

a graphical editor; (b) development of the ZR community website; (c) development of
the SPHERES integrated programming environment using the 2010 version as aprototype; and (4) integration of the SPHERES high-fidelity simulation into the TopCoderserver compilation and testing “Farm”, which is the robust back-end handling andimplementing the ZR simulation requests.
The objective of the promotional video competition was to generate a commercial thatwould best capture the interest of the “Zero Robotics Challenge” participants who arenamely students (middle and high school), parents, and teachers. This video generationcompetition was dived into 3 phases. In the first phase, competitions submitted short
descriptions (140 characters or less) on potential video ideas. The second phase
captured pitches (storyboard and text) from the various ideas generated previously. The
final phase was video production and submission.
The Zero Robotics Video Challenge Top video winner and MIT video has been added to
the NASA YouTube channel. These two videos were used by Brand Ads to promote Zero
Robotics on online gaming sites and Social Media sites. All edited winning videos areavailable for ZR use on website to promote HS and MS competitions. The winning video
can be found here: http://tongal.com/work/53h1g6.
8.10 NASA Great Moonbuggy Race
The 19th annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race was held April 12-14, 2012, at the U.S.
Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. At this competition more than 70 student
teams, many representing schools that field competitors year after year, demonstrated
the same engineering skills and innovation that made NASA's Apollo-era lunar rover
program a success four decades ago. The event challenges high school, college, anduniversity students to design, build, and race lightweight, human-powered rovers –"Moonbuggies" – which address challenges much like those faced by NASA's lunar roverdevelopers in the late 1960s. The annual competition is designed to teach students totroubleshoot and solve problems; to demonstrate NASA's continuing commitment toinspiring new generations of scientists, engineers, and astronauts; to provide
opportunities and support systems that recruit, retain, and develop high school andundergraduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)related disciplines; and to provide experiences that inspire student interest andachievement in STEM disciplines.
8.11 NASA Student Launch Projects
The NASA Student Launch Projects annually challenges informal organizations andmiddle school, high school, and college students to design, build, and launch a reusablerocket to one mile above ground level while carrying a scientific or engineering payload.
SLP is comprised of two project elements: NASA Student Launch Initiative (SLI) for
middle/high school/informal teams and NASA University Student Launch Initiative (USLI)
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for community college and university teams. USLI is a competition where teams arescored on each element of the project. SLI is not a competition; however, teams mustfirst place in the top of the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) or the Rockets for
Schools (R4S) competitions to be eligible to submit a proposal for participation in SLI.
Any community college or university located in the United States is eligible to propose
to participate in USLI. The challenge of SLP is to design, fabricate, test, and fly a highpowered rocket carrying a science or engineering payload to an altitude of one mile
above ground level. Participating students are required to build and maintain a teamwebsite; submit and present a series of design reviews to a review panel of NASA
engineers, scientists, and educators; and engage other students in hands-on educational
activities. Approximately 500 students, educators and mentors participated in SLP in
2011-2012.
8.12 Lunabotics Mining Competition
NASA's Fourth Annual Lunabotics Mining Competition is an international university-levelcompetition designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineeringand mathematics (STEM). NASA encourages the development of innovative lunar
excavation concepts from universities which may result in clever ideas and solutions
which could be applied to an actual lunar excavation device or payload. The challenge isfor students to design and build an excavator, called a Lunabot, that can mine anddeposit a minimum of 10 kilograms of lunar simulant within 10 minutes. The
complexities of the challenge include the abrasive characteristics of the BP-1, the weightand size limitations of the Lunabot, and the ability to telerobotically or autonomously
control the Lunabot from a remote mission control center. The Lunabots cannot employ
any fundamental physical processes (e.g., suction or water cooling in the open lunar
environment), gases, fluids, or consumables that would not work in the lunar
environment. The scoring for the mining category will require teams to consider anumber of design and operation factors such as dust tolerance and projection,communications, vehicle mass, energy/power required, and full autonomy.
To stir innovative technology ideas for excavating lunar soil, a necessary first step
toward extracting resources from lunar soil and building bases on the moon, thestudents are required to design, build, test, and compete a Lunabot. Students compete
for monetary awards in seven categories: on-site mining, systems engineering paper,presentation and demonstration, outreach project report, team spirit, and the overall
grand prize The Joe Kosmo Award for Excellence. Winners for monetary awards are
selected based on numerical scores for each category. Winner of the Joe Kosmo Award
for Excellence also receive launch invitations, and travel expenses to a NASA field test.
Onsite mining winners also receive launch invitations. There are also several nonmonetary award categories including: innovation, social media, and efficient use ofcommunications.

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8.13 NASA Tournament Lab
The NASA Tournament Lab (NTL)54 continued to flourish in FY2012. A few highlights
include the development of an Android ECG mobile app with implications for space andthird-world medical application; development of several mobile apps that allow
planetary observation data to be queried and inspected efficiently and quickly that
included a smart app to support educators in the classroom; as well as launching aseries of Big Data Challenges in support of the Government’s Networking andInformation Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. NASA worked
closely with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy on these
Big Data challenges. Winners will be formally announced in January 2013.
Unique to the NTL this year was the launch of a video competition to support the 2012
Zero Robotics Challenge. The highest dollar winner of the competition produced avideo55 that during the month of September was one of the top five viral videos.
The NTL ends this successful year preparing to launch a challenge for the International
Space Station (ISS) Program. The ISS Longeron Shadowing challenge will be a series ofcontests designed to bring a unique approach to determining if NASA can optimize
power production from the solar arrays.
8.14 NASA Innovation Pavilion
Another significant milestone is that NASA is once again up and running with challenges
on its InnoCentive Innovation Pavilion.56 As FY2012 concluded, the Langley ResearchCenter was putting the wraps on a theoretical challenge to find a new method tomeasure the strain on Kevlar and Vectran straps in the 25 to 125°C range to advancetechniques for use in inflatable habitation structures. Fy2013 will bring the posting of achallenge to help find a device capable of measuring intracranial pressure in spaceflightto support research seeking ways to mitigate vision changes in astronauts. This
challenge is unique in that NASA used its internal crowdsourcing tool, NASA@work as
the starting point to gather information internal to NASA as well as using its technology
scouting platform (yet2.com) to seek unique sources of understanding what
technologies may be out there that meet a more mature technology readiness level.
Launching the challenge on the Innovation Pavilion will lend yet another source ofadvancing research in a key focus area of human health and performance in space. The
CoECI will be monitoring the results this next year with a keen focus on the lessons
learned that result from this multi-platform approach.

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http://community.topcoder.com/ntl/
55 http://tongal.com/project/ZeroRobotics
56 https://www.innocentive.com/pavilion/NASA88

9. National Institute of Standards and Technology
9.1 NIST SHA-3 Hash Competition
In order to strengthen and ensure future information security NIST challenged theglobal cryptographic community to come up with a new cryptographic hash algorithm,
SHA-3. Hash algorithms are used in numerous everyday transactions to authenticate andprotect information. This major challenge allowed the NIST’s Computer Security Division
to tap into the best cryptography talent from around the world to help solve this criticalchallenge with the winners receiving the scientific and commercial recognition of being
among the elite in their field. In addition to identifying the best SHA-3 algorithm, thiscompetition has contributed to tremendous gains in the cryptography community
regarding the general theory and understanding of hash algorithms, far beyond what
NIST could have accomplished alone.
A cryptographic hash algorithm is one of the fundamental tools of modern information
security. It is a widely used tool that creates a “fingerprint” or a “message digest” of afile, message, or block of data that can be used for digital signatures, message
authentication codes, and many other security applications in the information
infrastructure. Following attacks that broke existing hash algorithms, in 2007 NIST
decided that it was prudent to develop a new hash algorithm to augment and revise theFederal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180–2, which specifies hash algorithms
for Federal use and is widely adopted by the IT industry. The new hash algorithm would
be referred to as ‘‘SHA–3’’, and would be developed through a public competition. NIST
intended that SHA–3 would specify an unclassified, publicly disclosed algorithm(s),which would be available worldwide without royalties or other intellectual property
restrictions, and would be capable of protecting sensitive information for decades.
The worldwide cryptographic community provided an enormous amount of feedback
throughout the competition. Most of the comments were sent to NIST and a public hashforum. in addition, many of the cryptanalysis and performance studies were publishedas papers in major cryptographic conferences or leading cryptographic journals. NIST
also hosted three SHA-3 candidate conferences to obtain public feedback.
Based on the public comments and internal review of the candidates, NIST announced
Keccak as the winner of the SHA-3 Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Competition on
October 2, 2012, and ended the five-year competition. The Keccak algorithm wascreated by Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen and Gilles Van Assche of STMicroelectronics andMichael Peeters of NXP Semiconductors. Per the terms of the competition, SHA-3 willremain an unclassified, publicly disclosed algorithm available worldwide on a royalty
free basis as a new security tool for network system designers.

8910. Department of Defense
10.1 Army Challenge: Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge
The U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith Simulation and Training Technology
Center of the Human Research and Engineering Directorate, U.S. Army ResearchLaboratory introduced the inaugural Federal Virtual Worlds Challenges (FVWC) in thesummer of 2009 to reach a global research and developmental community. 57 The goal
was to explore a multitude of potential capabilities and developments within virtualenvironments. The demonstrated benefit of that first challenge to research in immersive
environments resulted in the approval from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the
Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology for the continuation of FVWC as anannual event.
Following the Defense GameTech User’s Conference, winners had the opportunity todescribe their solutions to USG users and policymakers during a panel session at theFederal Consortium of Virtual Worlds Conference. Some entries were already USGdeveloped projects that benefitted from further socialization and reuse within theindustry. Various finalists built relationships with one another leading to working
partnerships. Finalists included the Challenge results on resumes, productadvertisements, and corporate achievements as a demonstration of expertise in thefield.
The Challenge was divided into two focus areas: ‘Engaging Learning Strategies’ and the‘Holodeck – Making It So’.
The Engaging Learning Strategies Focus Area – This focus area was a call fordemonstrations of learning activities in virtual environments that depict effective
strategies to engage learners. When entries were received in this focus area, they
logically fell into three categories: Concept Building, Distributed Learning andFamiliarization. A description of the finalists in each category follows.
In the Concept Building Category which included entries focused on presenting learning
tasks in an immersive environment, the Grand Prize and First Place Winner was“Interactive Graphic Novel Approach to Guided Learning. This battle care trainer
demonstrates how basic battlefield trauma triage could be trained using interactive
interface techniques provided on the iPad. In BattleCare, the learner plays the role ofAirman Collins, who is the medic on duty in Gardez near the Afghanistan border. The
57 All DOD prize summaries here are excerpted from the March 2013 Report from the

Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology,
and Logistics to Congress on the Prizes for Advanced Technology Achievements Under Title 10,
United States Code, Section 2374a.

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learner, as Airman Collins, learns the basics of A-B-C – checking for Airway, Breathing
and Circulation in a trauma patient. His mentor, Sergeant Rodriguez, allows Collins tomake his own choices (Discovery Learning) but provides feedback on those choices(Guided Discovery). The episode begins with the arrival of the trauma case and ends
with successful stabilization and helicopter evacuation of the patient. The rendering
style, character positioning, and page layout is based on graphic novel conventions.
Gesture-based interaction makes the learner feel like they are touching the patient.
Exploration gives a sense of game play while the mentor’s guidance means that thelearner does not get lose. Additional information on this entry can be found at
http://www.clinispace.com/fvwc/Engagina Learning.html.
Distributed Learning Category - The Distributed Learning entries demonstrated
instruction available to groups that supported collaboration and/or providing a
distributed learning platform.
First Place Winner: Creative Learning in a Wet Lab – This entry was developed tosupport small communities spread across the Alaskan Bush, some of which have no roadaccess, to overcome a lack of infrastructure and trained lab assistants needed to provide
a high quality, real time science lab. The virtual wet lab system provides a virtual"hands-on" lab environment where students can do a live lab together, regardless ofphysical location. Intuitive camera presets ease the frustration of trying to examine
multiple objects in real time in order to complete labs in faster than real time. One lab
allows students to instantly cross fruit fly traits and explore the fundamentals of
Mendelian genetics. Another lab examines the DNA of a poached fish as students
complete a 24 hour lab in 2 hours. A virtual world is used to re-conceptualize what itmeans to conduct a science lab: the student becomes a participant within whatever
image or data they are observing. For example, by controlling time, students experience
predatory natural selection as a bird hunting for food during 250 years of environmental
change. Other labs, such as fermentation and biochemical evidence for evolution, delay
reactions to enhance data collection. Students interact with altered time and virtual
space as they develop essential lab skills that can be applied toward new situations inmore advanced classes. Additional information on this entry can be found at
http://www.pwscc.edu/academics/creative-learning-in-a-virtual-wet-lab/
Familiarization Category - The Familiarization category provided an immersive
environment for learners to become familiar with physical spaces or to link concepts tophysical spaces.
First Place Winner: United States Air Force Academy Browser Based 3D Virtual Campus
Tour - The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), located in Colorado Springs,
Colorado, found that travel limitations hindered their ability to recruit potential cadets.
They wanted an effective recruitment method that would eliminate inconvenience tothese potential cadets or their families. USAFA found that virtual worlds could offer theability to have a 3D virtual campus where potential cadets could walk around and learn
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about culture, size, and beauty of the campus through an avatar. This immersive 3D
virtual campus tour allows students to access the campus quickly and easily using a URL
through any major browser. Potential cadets have the ability to tour the campus on
their own, or can attend individual or group tours with an automated admissions
representative who is able to showcase all of the Academy's features. Non-playing
characters provide additional information on what the Academy has to offer. Interactive
games such as basketball, hockey, parachute and a flight simulator offer a fun andengaging medium to keep cadets coming back to learn more. Points from trivia andgames allow for the purchase of USAFA branded virtual apparel and accessories,
including the top prize - the mascot uniform. Then cadets are able to access theapplication quickly and easily through the virtual campus tour once they have decided
USAFA is the right place for them. The development of the 3D virtual campus tour MMO
for the USAFA has proven to be a valued addition to the recruitment process with over
1,000 potential cadets in the system within the first few months. Additional informationon this entry can be found at http://www.designingdigitaHv.com/portfolio/virtualworlds/united-states-air-force-academv-browserbased-3d-virtual-campus-tour.
The 'Holodeck - Making It So' Focus Area - This focus area was a call to developers tomake significant advancements toward reducing the gap between the player and theenvironment using low cost materials. Entries were limited to $600 hardware costs(aside from the computing platform) each.
Grand Prize and First Place Winner: CyberSim Holodeck - This entry uses two scenarios
to demonstrate the potential capabilities of various virtual world input devices:microphone, keyboard, Xbox Kinect, and the Emotiv brain computer interface head set.
Each of the devices was made compatible with SecondLife and OpenSim and was an
Augmented Virtual Reality tool that brought real world experiences into Virtual Worlds.
The CyberSim Holodeck models a Security Operations Center (SOC) as an augmented
virtual cyber security analyst workspace. The CyberSim Holodeck combines virtual
reality (SecondLife and Military Open Simulator Enterprise Strategy (MOSES)) withaugmented reality technologies (Smartphone and HTML5 viewer) to create an analytic
training environment for the next generation cyber security analyst using low-cost nontraditional input devices. Examples of input devices include a microphone for Voice
Recognition/Command using PocketPhinx software; a standard keyboard for Text to
Speech using cepstral and flite software; an Xbox Kinect for skeletal tracking using
OpenNI and FAAST software, and an Emotiv head set for EGG using Expressive,
Affective, Cognitive Suites. Augmented Reality capabilities were demonstrated, using
smartphone applications, further reducing the gap between the player and environment
to bring real experiences into the Holodeck virtual environment. Additional informationon this entry can be found at http://www.cvbersim.net/Holodeck/Holodeck.php

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10.2 Air Force Challenges: Fuel Scrubber, Grey DATA, Durable Dielectrics on
Polycarbonate, and Energetic Core-Shell Nanocluster Production
In FY 2012, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) executed four award challenges toaddress near-term problems facing the Warfighter. By opening these challenges up to
the world through InnoCentive, AFRL was able to increase the number of people
addressing this problem by over 100 fold and received workable solutions within a very
short amount of time.
The primary goal of the Air Force (AF) challenge program is to apply emerging andexisting technologies in novel ways to solve near-term problems facing the Warfighter.
One of the challenges in meeting these urgent needs is the long timeline associated withestablishing a program to execute such a solution, which is largely a result of establishedbusiness and acquisition processes for funding allocation, market surveys, contracting,program management, and review that are tuned for longer term research activities.
Each challenge was assigned a Challenge Owner from a technical directorate that had
responsibility in the area of interest. If a challenge produced a usable result, the award
was paid and the Challenge Owner would incorporate the result in their technology
development program. The four challenges and results are as follows:
10.2.1 Fuel Recovery: This theoretical challenge was to create a system that could
enable recovery of Air Force Jet engine fuel spilled from a storage silo. The system must
remove synthetic surfactants that are commonly used in firefighting foams as well aswater and other debris. The solution needs to be portable as part of an overall fuelrecovery solution that would be able to recover up to 200,000 gallons in an 8 hour
period allowing the fuel to be immediately ready for use in operational aircraft. There
were 447 people that responded to this challenge and showed interest in providing
solutions. Of the 17 concepts that were submitted, three solutions had merit and were
worth pursuing. Two of these ideas solved one of the requirements for Joint Capability
Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program. The JCTD program manager decided tomake a dual award and pursue two of these ideas to reduce the technology risk to his
program. The JCTD program manager is now developing working prototypes for bothconcepts to find out which one will work better in the field environments. Prior to thechallenge, the program manager had no viable ideas on how to solve this problem.
10.2.2 Grey Data: AF researchers routinely process large amounts of information fromdiverse sources (e.g., sensors, social media, public records). Data on people's activities
and habits are increasingly available online, raising the possibility of a researcher
inadvertently violating privacy act laws. This ideation challenge was to find atrustworthy automated mechanism to determine whether online information is public
or private. There were 684 people that responded to this challenge, and the ideas thatwere submitted identified many partial solutions that could be combined to create arobust automated discovery mechanism. It also identified new data mining softwarethat the researchers were not aware of (e.g., "Splunk") that could be trained to alert on93

private data. The results of this challenge were added to a legal studies report producedby the USAF Academy on how to determine boundaries of social media research.
10.2.3 Durable Dielectrics on Polycarbonate: AF researchers were looking for adielectric coating and a process to apply it to a curved polycarbonate substrate whose
surface area ranges from 150 to 750 square cm. The coating had to act as a "hot mirror"(transmit visible, reflect near infra-red), be up to 10 microns in thickness, and maintainits integrity and performance under environmental conditions (-40 C to +70 C, and 0% to
98% RH, Mil Std Salt fog testing). Although 237 people participated in this challenge,
there was no viable solution found and no award was made.
10.2.4 Energetic Core-Shell Nanocluster Production: AF researchers were looking formaterial processing technologies for the production of core-shell nanoclusters ofenergetic materials with particle diameters between 5 and 25 nm. Emphasis was on acontrollable process that produced air-stable, consistent particles at increased rates that
could scale up to at least lg/hour. This challenge had 202 participants but the challenge
was also sent to over 100 different nano-research centers across the United States withinformation about this challenge and AFRL's interest in following up with a Small
Business Research effort to test out a potential solution. This challenge is still underevaluation from those responses submitted to the Challenge. AFRL was also contacted
by one credible source that did not want to submit to the prize but indicated that theywould be submitting to the SBIR solicitation in order to retain control of theirIntellectual Property and noted that they would not have responded to the SBIR
announcement without first being alerted to it by the challenge.

10.3 DARPA Challenges: Cash for Locating and Identifying Quick Response
In FY 2012, DARPA executed two challenge award programs: (1) the Cash for Locating
and Identifying Quick Response (CLIQR) Codes Quest Challenge, and (2) the Shredder
Challenge.
10.3.1 CLIQR Codes Quest: The CLIQR Challenge sought to advance the understandingof social media and the Internet to explore the role each plays in timely communication,
wide-area team building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, timecritical problems. The DARPA CLIQR Quest Challenge provided an increased
understanding of how social networks organize around a common theme. The
hypothesis was that information brokers would emerge in the development of a
network and could be identified through nodal analysis of activity. The Challenge
demonstrated that social networks formed as hypothesized, enabling DARPA to map
and analyze the process through a semi-controlled scenario. Subsequent to the event,
DARPA discussed the results, methods employed, and potential ramifications withseveral organizations including PeopleBrowsr, HHS ASPR, and the Department ofHomeland Security Office of Resilience Policy. In addition, all four Services received
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information regarding and had exposure to this Challenge. The DARPA CLIQR Quest
Challenge achieved its goals and has helped DARPA advance the understanding of social
media and the Internet and explored the role the Internet and social networking play inthe timely communication, wide area team-building, and urgent mobilization required
to solve broad scope, time-critical problems.
10.3.2 Shredder Challenge: The DARPA Shredder Challenge called upon participants topiece together a series of shredded documents using any means available, including
manual methods, computerized methods, and crowd sourcing. Five one-sided
handwritten documents were shredded into more than 10,000 pieces, and the imagesof the shredded pieces were posted online. Document subject matter and the degree ofshredding were varied to present problems of increasing difficulty. To complete eachproblem, participants provided answers to questions embedded in the content ofreconstructed documents, with the intent of mirroring the problem facing an
intelligence analyst with a similar task. Competitors were awarded points according toan established rubric for successfully reconstructing documents and to a sufficientdegree that they could answer embedded questions. The goal of the DARPA Shredder
Challenge was to accelerate technological solutions and problem-solving techniques
enabling the reconstruction of shredded documents at the tactical edge. Specifically, theprogram goals were to: (1) identify and assess potential capabilities that could be usedby warfighters to more quickly obtain valuable information from confiscated, shredded
documents, and (2) gain a quantitative understanding of potential vulnerabilities
inherent to the shredding of sensitive U.S. National Security documents.
The DARPA Shredder Challenge was a successful demonstration of the potential of an
integrated human-machine approach to solve large, complex problems that would benear impossible by any other means. DARPA discussed the results with several
organizations within the law enforcement, military, and intelligence communities
including the Federal Bureau of Investigation Questioned Documents Unit, Army G2Document and Media Exploitation, and Sandia National Laboratories. The DARPA
Shredder Challenge achieved its goals and stimulated interest in the programs andprojects of interest to the DOD science and technology community. The event attracted
a large pool of nontraditional participants. The varied methods used have potential
implications for problems generally considered unsolvable by conventional means. This
result promises to inspire a new class of problem solving approaches in areas important
to National Security.

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