Bell Labs Prize Calls for Submission

The Bell Labs Prize 2019 has called on innovators in the ICT sector with impactful, game changing ideas to submit for a sum of $175,000 in the 2019 Bell Labs Prize. Three innovators from around the world will be chosen to win a share of the prize money. The competition is looking for proposals that will considerably ‘change the game’ in the ICT sector. Only in innovators from Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are eligible to apply in Africa.

Founded in 1925, Bell Labs a subsidiary of Nokia, is an industrial research and scientific development company. Its headquarters are located in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Other laboratories are located around the world. Bell Labs has its origins in the complex past of the Bell System. The company will award a first prize of $100,000, a second prize of $50,000 and a third prize of $25,000 to the winners respectively.

The first stage requires that applicants create an idea that is ICT related in about 250 words. Applicants are to consider web applications, cloud services, information theory, computational sciences, cryptography, distributed systems, data privacy, mathematics of networks, modulation schemes, optical systems or components, communications systems, network protocols, network architecture, radio frequency design, sustainability, wireless, fixed network technologies, software-defined networks, virtualization technologies, real-time analytics, search algorithms, self-optimizing networks, and inference systems.

The submission deadline is on the 26th of April and all selected finalists will be notified on the 24th of May 2019 by an email. Over 10 finalists will be selected and each will be assigned a Bell Labs researcher who will help groom them to strengthen their idea and eventually turn it into a catchy proposal.

The proposals will be evaluated in three ways;

10x innovation potential: originality and how it could result in a 10x change in performance around speed or amount, distance, latency, cost, energy efficiency or simplicity.

Technical merit: Its current principles and capabilities. Its future advancement and innovations.

Feasibility: Is the concept achievable?

All finalist will be evaluated on the business impact of proposal. A judging panel led by Bell Labs president Marcus Weldon and other business leaders from within Bell Labs, Nokia and other high tech companies will go through the top proposal and announce the winner on 4th of December 2019.

Interested? Click here to apply.