12/21/2010 05:06:00 PM
Exciting news from the halls of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC: Congress has passed the America COMPETES Act. While we'll leave the full analysis to the more politically inclined blogs, we're thrilled to point out one key aspect of this legislation: once this is signed into law and takes effect, every federal agency will have the ability to conduct incentive prizes!
The legislation actually allows for a few different types of prizes:
- Point Solution Prizes - "rewards and spurs the development of solutions for a particular, well-defined problem"
- Exposition Prizes - "helps identify and promote a broad range of ideas and practices that may not otherwise attract attention, facilitating further development of the idea or practice by third parties"
- Participation Prizes - "create value during and after the competition by encouraging contestants to change their behavior or develop new skills that may have beneficial effects during and after the competition"