The X Prize has announced the launch of two competitions, the Water Abundance XPRIZE and the Anu and Naveen Jain Women’s Safety XPRIZE.

Sponsored by the Tata Group and Australian Aid and announced during a United Nations Day reception in New Delhi, the two-year, $1.75 million Water Abundance prize seeks to alleviate the global water crisis by sparking the development of an energy-efficient technology that can extract at least two thousand liters per day of fresh water from the atmosphere using 100 percent renewable energy at a cost of no more than two cents per day. The schedule for the competition includes five months for team registration, seven months for initial solution development, and a year for the testing and judging of entries.

Announced at the same UN event, the Women's Safety Prize will leverage technology to empower communities with a transformative solution that ensures women's safety. The winning solution will autonomously and inconspicuously trigger an emergency alert when a woman is assaulted and transmit information to a network of community responders — within ninety seconds — at an annual cost of $40 or less. The twenty-month competition includes four months for team registration, six months for initial solution development, and ten months to develop solutions and test and judge entries.

"The launch of these two new XPRIZEs in India puts us on an unstoppable path for grand impact," said Zenia Tata, XPRIZE's executive director for global expansion. "India is becoming a leading global innovation hub and that in itself speaks volumes of the caliber of innovators and entrepreneurs this country hosts. We want to cultivate this spirit and encourage exponential breakthroughs that will positively transform the lives of a billion people."