There are some problems with prizes like the hard-to-avoid arbitrary nature of the rules and winner-gets-all problems which make big projects risky - you can't

There are some problems with prizes like the hard-to-avoid arbitrary nature of the rules and winner-gets-all problems which make big projects risky - you can't get a loan from the bank for building a project for a competition. But patents and traditional innovation where you have to found a company and try to market your stuff might be even worse than that - I think most technical people don't like the idea of creating their own company. It might be easier to just open source your project. I've been thinking about open sourcing some of my (hardware) ideas. It doesn't seem likely I'd ever create a company and start wasting my time in the pursuit of unlikely success. I'm not a crazy risk seeking optimistic person.