Prize worth $5 mn for best solution to address global risks

Stockholm-based Global Challenges Foundation, has offered a USD 5 million prize for the best idea to address urgent threats such as climate change, conflict and extreme poverty, for which it has sought entries from across the world including India.
The New Shape Prize is a quest to find new models of global cooperation capable of handling the most urgent threats to humanity across the world.
Regarding India, it said the country is amongst one of the many nations where impacts of global catastrophic risks will have far reaching impacts, the Chennai floods or the Cauvery water dispute owing to depletion of natural resources being the recent examples.

"We truly believe that India has the potential to play a crucial role in this initiative owing to the ingenious potential that exists in the country," it said.
The competition is open from today until May 24, 2017. The prize is open to anyone - individuals, groups and organisations - anywhere in the world. Final awards will be made in November 2017.
"Today's risks are so dangerous and so global in their nature they've outrun the international system's ability to deal with them, we're trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's tools," Global Challenges Foundation founder Laszlo Szombatfalvy said.
"We believe a new shape of collaboration is needed to address the most critical challenges in our globalised world," he added.