Biofore Magazine 2022

B IG P ICTURE

21

a)

b)

c)

d)

The possible end-uses for wood-based products are growing: a) a chair made from cellulose reinforced biocomposite, b) sustainable packaging materials made from wood pulp, c) a wooden satellite made from birch-plywood, d) sustainable fuels made from crude tall oil.

“Our vision is to co-architect an abundant, hopeful and equitable future for humanity. We do this by identifying barriers and grand challenges that humanity faces, and then we incentivise radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity,” summarises Anousheh Ansari , XPRIZE Foundation CEO. XPRIZE Foundation's model has proven to be successful outside of global economics and political systems, and its focus is on impact. Fundamentally, Ansari believes that there are more people in the world that want to do good and help others, and this hopeful energy is what XPRIZE is all about. “Our audacious missions start by iden tifying clear targets and inspiring the global community of problem solvers to build the solutions. By identifying the outcomes without specifying the approach, wemaximise innovative approaches to find the best, most efficient solutions,” she explains. “As an entrepreneur, the incentive prize model was a no-brain er for me. Competition inspires crowdsourced solutions without a payout until the solution is built and tested, minimising risk. Since the first XPRIZE proved successful, we’ve used this model to inspire

innovation for humanity’s pressing challenges across other sectors and have seen similar and better results,” Ansari states. Future of material innovation When it comes to materials of the future, the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE challenged teams to turn waste carbon dioxide into valuable products. One of the winning teams is focusing on injecting the CO 2 emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities into concrete that can be used for construction, and in the pro cess, help the sector reduce its footprint. Ansari is excited and hopeful about the possibilities that some of the research is producing: “We believe this technology holds the potential to make immense changes to our society.” Who knows what the next era in our civilisation will hold – and what material it might be named after? By working together to find these urgent solutions, we won’t be overstretching our planet threefold for natural resources, but rather sustainably utilising the one Earth that we all inhabit.