Ori Inbar, co-founder of Augmented World Expo, announced that his firm will organize an XR Prize Challenge to fight for climate change. The contestant will create Extended Reality (XR) apps in a competition for a $100,000 prize.

Inbar made the announcement at the opening of AWE, which is expected to draw thousands of attendees and 250 exhibitors to the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California.

“I’m talking real cash,” Inbar said onstage at the event.

The winner will be announced a year from now at AWE 2023 and will be judged on the impact of the application. Inbar said that the fight against climate change is the most important task of our time. The winning team will have no limits on spending the money and will retain the intellectual property rights.

“The last two decades have shown all too conclusively how climate change is in the process of dramatically reshaping everything from the global terrain to water scarcity and threatens humanity,” Inbar said. “We believe in the power of AR and VR to simulate and visualize the invisible, which can help change people’s behavior while having a positive impact on climate change.”

He added: “Every man, woman and other people of conscience must strive to solve this potentially apocalyptic scenario, and there are no better tools than virtual reality and augmented reality to achieve it! Since 2010, the AWE community of 50,000 AR and VR professionals has been inspiring a movement to promote AR and VR to advance humanity. I am looking forward to seeing first-hand how this contest will empower the XR community to come up with truly innovative solutions.”

Meanwhile, Inbar played an air guitar on stage using AR sensors. And he said that his top ten dreams for XR include X-ray vision, teleportation, matter manipulation, invisibility, shapeshifting, super strength, ability mastery, telekinesis, precognition, and time travel.