FRISCO, Texas, July 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Frisco Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) announces its sponsorship of CauseBot, an official team competing in the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. CauseBot, one of 147 teams across 22 countries accepted into the global competition, is the only team based in Texas.

The IBM Watson AI XPRIZE is a four-year, $5M prize competition challenging teams globally to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful AI technologies to tackle the world’s grand challenges.

“Frisco is one of the fastest growing cities in America because people see our city as a home for innovation and progress,” said Mayor Jeff Cheney.  “Frisco is proud to sponsor CauseBot in this elite worldwide group of competitors.  The IBM Watson AI XPRIZE is a tremendous opportunity for all the entrants; however, we will be enthusiastically rooting for CauseBot to bring home the prize.”

“We are excited to have FEDC as our team’s exclusive civic sponsor,” said Ken Koo, CauseBot team lead. “The resources provided by our engagement in the Frisco business and nonprofit community will be invaluable as we charge towards our mission of changing the world by providing nonprofits with free artificial intelligence solutions.”

CauseBot has successfully cleared the first milestone of the competition, earning a place in the competition for the remainder of 2017. In the fall of 2018 and 2019, subsequent selection rounds will narrow the field. The competition will culminate in three finalists participating in the Grand Prize competition on the TED2020 stage.

About CauseBot

CauseBot is an official team competing in the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. In collaboration with Dallas-area organizations, the team aims to provide free artificial intelligence software solutions to nonprofits around the world. Sign up to stay informed at causebot.ai.

About Frisco Economic Development Corporation

The Frisco Economic Development Corporation (FEDC) was created in 1991, when Frisco voters approved a half-cent sales tax to fund economic development in the city. The FEDC operates as a Texas non-profit corporation and is governed by a seven-member board of directors appointed by the Frisco City Council. Job number one is creating jobs. Since its establishment, the FEDC has helped facilitate major economic development projects in the City of Frisco, resulting in more than 350 projects that have the potential to occupy over 450 million square feet of commercial space, generate new capital investment in excess of $8 billion, and create or retain more than 78,000 potential direct jobs in Frisco. Learn more at FriscoEDC.com.

About XPRIZE

XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. XPRIZE utilizes a unique combination of gamification, crowd-sourcing, incentive prize theory, and exponential technologies as a formula to make 10x (vs. 10%) impact in the grand challenge domains facing our world. XPRIZE’s philosophy is that—under the right circumstances— igniting rapid experimentation from a variety of diverse lenses is the most efficient and effective method to driving exponential impact and solutions to grand challenges. Active competitions include the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, the $1.75M Water Abundance XPRIZE and the $1M Anu & Naveen Jain Women’s Safety XPRIZE. For more information, visit http://www.xprize.org.

Media Contacts

Ken Koo
CauseBot
ken@causebot.ai

Darcy Schroer
Director of Marketing
Frisco Economic Development Corporation
972.292.5155
dschroer@friscoedc.com

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SOURCE Frisco Economic Development Corporation