I'm happy to see NASA continuing its tradition of reaching beyond traditional communities to work on hard problems (e.g., its prior Glove challenge). Used correctly, these competitions hold the promise to help engage the public, source novel innovations, and save the government money (plus be fun!).<p><i>BUT</i>, as somebody who recently participated in a DoD-sponsored contest that was rife with improprieties, bias, and incompetence (the government effectively threw away the rule book in making the reward), please be careful in reviewing the rules and verifying that the administrators of this are accountable. Regardless of if the amount at stake is $50K or $1M, bureaucrats have an astonishing capacity for rationalizing whatever outcome they choose or stumble into.