Innovation & Technology Innovation & Technology

HPE Living Progress Challenge Calling for Tech Solutions to Address Global Problems

Amidst increasing risks and heightened uncertainty, diverse perspectives are essential to solving the complex problems facing the world today. That is the thinking behind Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)’s Living Progress Challenge, which is asking people from all over the world: What software applications and digital services would you create to improve people’s lives?

By Hannah Furlong | Published 8 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Amidst increasing risks and heightened uncertainty, diverse perspectives are essential to solving the complex problems facing the world today. That is the thinking behind Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)’s Living Progress Challenge, which is asking people from all over the world: What software applications and digital services would you create to improve people’s lives?

“The potential for technology to break down barriers is limitless. Technology is opening doors to education, employment, financial services, social services, healthcare and more,” Christopher Wellise, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Living Progress at HPE, explained in a blog post. “At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, we are committed to accelerating opportunity through our actions and innovations. That’s why we’re proud to launch the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Living Progress Challenge. […] Our goal? To improve the lives of one million people by 2020.”

Ideas will be accepted until March 11, 2016, through which time the public can also vote on what they feel is the most impactful idea. The most popular idea will be awarded $1,000, and additional prizes for ideas include:

$5,000 in charitable awards for the first 200 ideas submitted ($25 per idea); and
Up to $10,000 in other prizes, to be announced.

The ideas will have the chance to be developed into real-world solutions. Proposals to make any of the ideas (yours or someone else’s) into a reality, in the form of a “well-defined project brief,” can be submitted to be eligible for the following:

$1,000 prize each for up to 20 proposals chosen to move on to the design phase; and
$5,000 prize for the idea linked to the Grand Prize Winner.

Ideas submitted now through February 15 will also be able to receive feedback from HPE to help them improve it; contestants will be able to resubmit their proposal up to the March 11 final deadline. Submissions that use HPE technologies will also receive extra points.

Up to 20 winning ideas will be announced on March 25 to progress to the design phase, which will take place from April through June. Each team will receive 12 weeks of services from software developers, designers, project managers and data scientists from HPE and the “crowdsourcing community” to develop a software prototype. From there, up to 5 winning teams will move on to the build phase and receive an additional 12 weeks of services from July through October to develop working software. The $5,000 will be awarded to the submitter of the Grand Prize-winning idea at the end of the build phase, but all build phase teams will have the opportunity to deploy their solution in the real world.