In a bid to encourage more developers to use its Watson cognitive computing services, IBM is sponsoring a new development contest that offers $5 million in total prize money. However, while most development contests take place over weeks or months, this contest will go on until 2020, when winners will be announced at TED 2020. And in order to get to the final event, development teams will compete at the World of Watson conference every year, with only each year’s winners advancing to the next round.
Three winning teams will split $4.5 million in prize money, and IBM will use the other $500,000 to help fund development projects throughout the contest. “We’re inviting teams from around the world to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful cognitive A.I. technologies capable of solving some of the world’s grand challenges,” IBM said.
