Have you in your rules stated anything about teams leaving the prize?  Or have you had any sort of casual agreement about it? 

My only thoughts were back to the X-Prize where i can remember seeing a few people comment on teams being listed but showing no progress.  I guess as a lot of your teams arent companies, you cant see if they are still "in business". 

I wondered what your thoughts were on teams signing up then not actually doing anything, not showing any updates also not making any effort to be involved or contact you. 

Is there anything in place to contact them about it?  And if so would they then be removed from the team list?  Would there be a press release to state a team leaving, afterall people may be interested in their Team Number! 

Hi Rob, good question.  Teams are free to leave at any time, of course, but I don't have any formal plans to require teams to show some level of activity.  I think that, in the bowels of the rules, there is a clause saying that, if too many teams want to register, we might ask for non-active teams to withdraw, but I don't plan to enforce that any time soon. 

Of the current teams, some are a lot more active than others, of course, which is understandable.  It's possible that one or two of the early sign-ups are not actively pursuing the N-Prize, but I know of at least one team who have contacted me regretting their inaction to date, but their hope to become more active when circumstances change. 

On balance, I'd sooner leave all teams registered, at least for the time being, and no team will be de-registered if they express a desire to continue (as long as they comply with the rules of the contest). 

Best,
Paul

_________________"Gentlemen, we haven't got any money, so we are going to have to think!"