You are cordially invited to attend a half-day workshop on the Oil-Spill-Response Prize hosted by the Prince William Sound Oil Spill Recovery Institute and conducted by a scientific advisory from InnoCentive (www.innocentive.com).

The goal of the workshop is to develop challenge statements related to Research and Development problems of oil spill response technologies for arctic and subarctic marine environments. The Oil-spill-response Prize is a new program sponsored by the OSRI and partners to leverage R & D funds to solve particular challenges in oil spill response through an innovative process of a competitive prize. Following the workshop, we will advertise the challenge(s) broadly and award a purse prize(s) for successful solutions to oil spill response technology needs identified at this workshop.

For more information about the Oil-spill-response Prize, please see the memo below.

Date: Wednesday February 7, 2007
Time: 1:30 to 4:30 pm
Location: BP Energy Center, 900 E. Benson Blvd., Anchorage, AK, Tel. (907) 743-4270 (map attached)

Participation in the meeting via teleconference will also be possible by dialing 1-888-387-8686, room code 8442517#.

Please note that the presentations on the Feb. 7 workshop will primarily focus on the InnoCentive process and application to oil-spill-response challenges for marine environments. On February 8, a smaller group of representatives from organizations partnering in the prize will take part in a full-day workshop to develop and package the Oil-spill-response Prize(s).

Please RSVP to Nancy DiNapoli (nancyd@pwssc.gen.ak.us), Tel. (907) 424-5800 x227. Due to limited space, attendance will be by invitation only. If you have recommendations for other invitees, please send those to us.

We look forward to seeing you on February 7.

Sincerely,

Dr. Katey Walter

OSRI Research Program Manager

The Oil-spill-response Prize

In 2007 the Prince William Sound Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI) will take an alternative approach towards solving R&D challenges in the oil spill response field. Rather than developing an annual RFP to fund research that often only makes incremental steps towards meeting challenges, the OSRI is working to establish a purse prize to reward a successful, innovative solution to a problem facing the oil spill response community. It is our hope that the member organizations from the Charter for Development of the North Slope, the PWS Regional Citizens Advisory Council, and possibly other organizations will join the OSRI to match funds in this purse prize at the level of $50,000 or greater.

Leveraging a prize on the order of $50K-$150K (or more if funds permit), we would save on the large R&D cost of multiple individual investigators working towards meeting a particular challenge. We pay for a successful solution rather than an individual attempts to provide a solution. This is an exciting new approach, which seems to be ever more prevalent in industry and technology.

We have identified InnoCentive to assist in this process. InnoCentive matches top scientists to relevant research and development challenges facing leading companies around the globe. Please visit http://www.innocentive.com/, and review the attached Case Study as an example of how rewarding this new approach can be. At InnoCentive groups posing problems are called “Seekers” and individuals offering solutions are called “Solvers”. Note that if you register as a “solver” in the InnoCentive system, you can view details of the types of problems that folks are trying to solve.

Inspiration for the oil-spill-recovery prize stemmed from the X Prize, which captured world headlines in 2004, when Burt Rutan and Paul Allen were awarded $10M for being the team that designed the first private spaceship to fly to the edge of space, an endeavor that jump-started the personal spaceflight industry. The Oil-spill-response prize will be on the order of $50K-$150K per prize.

There will be an Ideas Generating Workshop, in which we’d like representatives from your organization to participate, on February 7, 2007 in Anchorage, and prize awards should be made available upon successful demonstration of a solution to the challenge later in 2007 or 2008.

Problem statements for several challenge topics have already been drafted: (1) Identification of a non-toxic de-icing product that can be sprayed on skimmer surfaces to effectively eliminate ice build-up, (2) Demonstration of instrumentation for quantifying the effectiveness of dispersed oil, (3) Development of effective, non-toxic, affordable dispersants for use in cold water, (4) Use and promotion of elastomers.

The table is open for receiving new ideas for Oil-spill-response Prize challenges. Given your knowledge of the problems facing the oil spill response community, please feel free to offer additional suggestions for challenges that would be of interest to you for this prize effort. An example and blank problem statement form are attached. We would welcome you to fill out this brief form and return it to us with your ideas.

We anticipate that final decisions on challenges and prize amounts will be made through the process of the Ideas Generating Workshop in February.

The Ideas Generating Workshop will prove most productive with participation not only from members of the steering committee, but also technicians and spill responders who have valuable knowledge and experience related to the challenges of oil spill response and feasibility of possible solutions.

On behalf of the OSRI, I thank you for your interest in joining with OSRI to develop the Oil-spill-response Prize in 2007 by way of an InnoCentive prize effort managed by OSRI.

Sincerely,

Katey Walter

Dr. Katey Walter
Research Program Manager
Oil Spill Recovery Institute
Prince William Sound Science Center
PO Box 705 Cordova, Alaska 99574
Tel. (907) 424-5800 ext. 222
Fax (907) 424-5820