New XPRIZE Anthology - Seat 14C

Visionary Sci-Fi Writers Transport You 20 Years into

the Future in New XPRIZE Anthology

Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Bruce Sterling, Hugh Howey, Mike Resnick among writers contributing original stories to new anthology, written from the perspective of passengers onboard a flight that mysteriously lands in the year 2037

The public is encouraged to fill the remaining seat on this flight by submitting a short story, with the winner to receive a trip for two to Tokyo

LOS ANGELES--June 28, 2017--XPRIZE, the global leader in incentivized prize competitions, in partnership with ANA, Japan’s 5-star airline, today launched Seat 14C, a revolutionary digital anthology that blends original science fiction stories with a writing competition to imagine what the year 2037 could look like. It is the first initiative by members of XPRIZE’s recently announced Science Fiction Advisory Council and includes new pieces by such high-profile authors as Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Bruce Sterling, Hugh Howey, Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Karl Schroeder, and Daniel H. Wilson.

The Seat 14C campaign is presented as an interactive web experience, featuring a short introductory video, followed by an interactive seat map where the stories of each passenger flying to San Francisco from Tokyo onboard ANA Flight 008 can be explored. Upon selecting Seat 14C, visitors will be provided instructions on how to submit their own short story and one person will be chosen to occupy that open seat, and the winner will receive a trip for two to Tokyo.

The anthology will launch with an initial batch of 22 stories, with subsequent stories to be released on a weekly basis over the course of the campaign.

The competition, which begins today and runs through August 25, 2017, is open to anyone over the age of 18 from anywhere in the world who submits a short story between 2,000 – 4,000 words. The stories will be judged based on unique vision of the future, adherence to story prompt, and alignment with a techno-optimistic view of the future. XPRIZE will narrow the selection to three finalists and members of the Science Fiction Advisory Council will vote on the finalist pieces to select the grand prize winner. The winner will receive a prize package worth $10,000 including:

• Round trip economy airfare to Tokyo for two
• 4 nights in a 4-star hotel
• $1,500 spending money
• GoPro HERO5 Ultra HD Camera
• ili, a Handheld Universal Translator
• Honorary membership in the acclaimed Science Fiction Advisory Council

For more information, visit http://www.seat14c.com.

About XPRIZE

XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges. XPRIZE utilizes a unique combination of gamification, crowd-sourcing, incentive prize theory, and exponential technologies as a formula to make 10x (vs. 10%) impact in the grand challenge domains facing our world. XPRIZE’s philosophy is that—under the right circumstances— igniting rapid experimentation from a variety of diverse lenses is the most efficient and effective method to driving exponential impact and solutions to grand challenges. Active competitions include the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE, the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, the $1.75M Water Abundance XPRIZE and the $1M Anu and Naveen Jain Women’s Safety XPRIZE. For more information, visit XPRIZE.org.

About ANA

All Nippon Airways (ANA) is the largest airline in Japan by revenues and passenger numbers. Founded in 1952, ANA flies today on 87 international routes and 117 domestic routes. The ANA group has 35,000 employees and a fleet of 254 aircraft. In FY2016, it carried 52.1 million passengers and generated revenues of 1.77 trillion Japanese yen. ANA offers trans-Pacific connections between Asia through the gateway of Japan and 10 North American destinations namely: New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Houston, Vancouver, and Honolulu. ANA has been a member of Star Alliance since 1999 and has joint-ventures with United Airlines on trans-Pacific and Asia routes and with Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines on Japan-Europe routes. Its Frequent Flyer Program, ANA Mileage Club, has more than 26 million members. ANA was voted Airline of the Year for 2013 by Air Transport World Magazine, and in 2017 was awarded five stars for the fifth consecutive year by the world's leading Airline and Airport review site, SKYTRAX. ANA is the launch customer and biggest operator of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.