But the cool thing is that the companies will attract all the non-standard R&D people: smart kids, people in between jobs, university students, etc. Smart peop

But the cool thing is that the companies will attract all the non-standard R&D people: smart kids, people in between jobs, university students, etc. Smart people with extra time on their hands, who would love for a tangible challenge to work on with real deadlines. But of course, it's also not really reasonable to devote so much time to something that they aren't guaranteed to win. Maybe there could be something in between? You show the company an early prototype or some sort of promising direction, and then they pay you a stipend to continue working on it. The prize money is then distributed among the most promising results, instead of just one.