Incentive prizes have fans even inside the White House. Thomas Kalil, the Deputy Director for Policy with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, has long been interested in prizes. Prior to joining President Obama's White House, he authored "Prizes for Technological Innovation" for the Brookings Institute. He also was one of the featured speakers at the X PRIZE Foundation's recent incentive2innovate conference. In his latest blog post, Kalil discusses "Prizes as Incentives for Public-Private Partnerships."

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis addresses business leaders in Singapore at The Innovation Forum. Pictured from left to right: Matt Bross, CTO, BT Group; Michael Schrage, Research Fellow, MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business; Anousheh Ansari, CEO and Co-founder, Prodea Systems; Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO, X PRIZE Foundation, Ohad Finklestein, Partner, Venrock Capital; Simon Hobbs, Anchor, CNBC Europe