Prize Purse

Shashi

Designers of the frontline health competition are considering a total prize purse of $5 million dollars. The purse would be divided as follows:
1. $2M to the winner
2. $1M to the runner-up
3. $200k to each team that qualifies for Round 2 as a milestone award (with the understanding that the team must complete Round 2 in order to keep the winnings)

What feedback do you have on these amounts? How do you feel about the milestone prize (which often help teams get to that ‘next level’ in their development)?

Please add any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions in the comments below!
Looking forward to all your feedback on these key elements of the competition.

Shashi

Hi @ymedan, @mashizaq, @reubenwenisch, @skornik, @arun_venkatesan @preciouslunga, @shamakarkal, @ajchenx, @jonc101, @bngejane, @supratik12, @Nitesh, @addy_kulkarni, @pglass - What are your thoughts on the suggested prize purse of this competition?

mashizaq

@Shashi The contest's designer maximizes expected effort. When cost functions are linear or concave in effort, it is optimal to allocate the entire prize sum to a single "first" prize. When cost functions are convex, several positive prizes may be optimal.
Prizes should be commensurate with the effort required and goals sought. On the other hand, rewards for prize contests with more ambitious objectives must be significantly larger in order to attract qualified contestants.
With this in mind, I feel that these amounts and the milestone prize fit just right for the prize purse.

ymedan

@Shashi Given the diverse nature of solutions in this space, covering diagnostics, digital therapeutics, health IT and tele-health, perhaps there is a room for considering a single 1st prize per each category from a purse of $3M. The milestone award is a great idea, so with having 3-5 domain categories and 3-4 contenders at each domain, the total $2M amount allocated may have to be divided accordingly, given the above parameters.

Shashi

Thanks @mashizaq and @ymedan for your thoughts and suggestions.

Hi @SArora, @RahulJindal, @rajpanda, @MachineGenes, @dollendorf, @kenjisuzuki, @Kwenz, @joshnesbit, @dpatterson22, @biki, @Nvargas2, @Easin32746, @a1m2r3h4, @mhackett, @namkugkim, @stephaniel, @care2communities, @Vishalgandhi, @Manoj_Nemocare, @kakkattil, @kkatara, @vipat, @Debbie_Rogers and @siimsaare - Do you feel the suggested prize purse is appropriate for this competition? Join the discussion to share your thoughts.

Shashi

Hi @orsina, @srinisatyan, @zubaidabi, @jenyxp, @LaurenMW, @timothymusila, @LeeStein, @martijnspruit, @Stefania, @praveenraja, @JoanneP, @krp - What are your thoughts on the suggested prize purse for this competition?

ssekitoleko

I think the categories chosen by @Shashi are good. The different levels will encourage innovators and may lead to many potentially high impact innovations.

kenjisuzuki

Given a total prize purse of $5M, Shashi's idea looks good to me. Giving milestone awards, $200k x 10 teams, is a good idea. It is expected that multiple important domains will be proposed such as diagnostics/therapeutics/prevention x technology (AI, telemedicine, IoT, digitalization, IT). We may want to give a prize to each essential domain, but when the prize amount is less than exciting amount, the impact of this competition will decrease. Giving $2M + $1M to 2 essential domains makes sense to me. Can consider a slightly modified version as an alternative though: $2M + $1M + $0.5M with $0.15M x 10 teams.

Shashi

Thanks @kenjisuzuki for sharing your thoughts. We agree having solutions in multiple domain is important.

HeatherSutton

@mashizaq ~ Thank you! It's great to have your endorsement on these prize purse numbers.

HeatherSutton

@ymedan ~ That's an interesting idea!

HeatherSutton

@kenjisuzuki ~ That's also a great suggestion (and one that seems to be supported by other members here as well). Thanks for that!

mashizaq

@HeatherSutton You are welcome