More than 150000 ideas from 170 countries were submitted to "Project 10-to-the-one-hundredth" launched two years ago. From that group, they narrowed it down to the final 16 ideas for public vote.
From their site,
The following five ideas received the most votes and are the winners of Project 10100. Over the past 12 months, we have reviewed concrete proposals to tackle these ideas. We are pleased to give a total of $10 million to five inspiring organisations working on solutions to each of these global challenges:
Idea: Make educational content available online for free
Project funded: The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organisation that provides high-quality, free education to anyone, anywhere via an online library of more than 1,600 teaching videos. We are providing $2 million to support the creation of more courses and to enable the Khan Academy to translate their core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages.
Idea: Enhance science and engineering education
Project funded: FIRST is a non-profit organisation that promotes science and maths education around the world through team competition. Its mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by giving them real-world experience of working with professional engineers and scientists. We are providing $3 million to develop and jump-start new student-driven robotics team fundraising programmes that will empower more student teams to participate in FIRST.
Idea: Make government more transparent
Project funded: Public.Resource.Org is a non-profit organisation focused on enabling online access to public government documents in the United States. We are providing $2 million to Public.Resource.Org to help bring legal materials of the United States online, so that they are accessible to all.
Idea: Drive innovation in public transport
Project funded: Shweeb is a concept for short-to-medium-distance, urban personal transport, using human-powered vehicles on a monorail. We are providing $1 million to fund research and development to test Shweeb’s technology for an urban setting.
Idea: Provide quality education to African students
Project funded: The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is a centre for maths and science education and research in Cape Town, South Africa. AIMS’ primary focus is a one-year bridging programme for recent university graduates that helps build skills and knowledge prior to Masters and PhD study. We are providing $2 million to fund the opening of additional AIMS centres to promote graduate-level maths and science study in Africa.
Each idea is a broad, ambitious, multi-year mission. We are excited about the potential of the projects proposed by these innovative organisations. We hope that you will follow the progress on their websites.
