WE ARE XPRIZE In 2015, Carbon XPRIZE sponsors NRG and COSIA put up 20 rocks to jumpstart the carbontech economy and tackle global warming. The results are in, and they are thrilling. In 1919, a hotelier announced a challenge that captured the worldâs imagination: He offered $25,000 to the first person who could fly non-stop from New York City to Paris. Over the next 8 years, nine entrepreneurial teams would spend $400,000 to make the impossible real, igniting public interest in flight and accelerating aviation technology in the process. Your fifth grade social studies teacher taught you the rest; a U.S. Air Mail pilot won the prize, and a lauded place in history.