Gingrich Issues Online Challenges
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is among the first in the political world to embrace ChallengePost.com, a Web site that lets users create and join challenges to accomplish goals. The New York City based start-up launched Monday at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual Internet and politics conference. Gingrich's wishes include:
• "Create a method of learning math and science that kids like, and that enables us to leapfrog India and China."
• "Create a method for reusing nuclear waste to make Yucca Mountain, Nevada unnecessary as a repository."
• "Create the first privately financed permanent lunar base."
• "Create a reusable system that could get people into space at 10% of the current cost, thus enabling genuine space tourism and launching an age of exploration."
• "Create a cheap method for turning large quantities of seawater into fresh water."
• "Create a modestly priced, mass-manufacturable hydrogen engine for cars, which would be the biggest single contribution to reducing carbon loading of the atmosphere and reducing subsidies through high oil prices to dictatorships."
• "Create a low-cost vaccine or preventive intervention for malaria -- possibly the single biggest potential improvement in the quality of life in poor tropical countries."
ChallengePost founder Brandon Kessler got the idea after seeing 23-year-old Colin Nederkoorn's contest to run Windows XP on an Intel Mac in 2006. Donations poured in, bringing the cash award to more than $13,000. The ChallengePost community can similarly add prize money to competitions they think are worthwhile. Read more here.
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