XPRIZE PRESENTS: THE MILLION DOLLAR MASK

Hey everybody. Peter Diamandis here, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation. welcome to The Million Dollar Next Gen Mask Challenge. Today we’re awarding one million dollars to the next gen mass challenge finalist team who has invented a face mask that not only protects you from covet 19 but is the most comfortable and the most functional and the most stylish Hello everyone and welcome to XPRIZE presents The Million Dollar Mask. I’m your host, Jim Cramer, host of MAD MONEY on CNBC. When masks became necessary in our daily lives, my co-sponsor and friend Mark Benioff and I realized that we needed something better and that young people around the world would have the answer.

Tonight, the top five finalists in the 01:05 - million dollar xprize next gen mass challenge each deliver a 60 second pitch on how their mass design overcomes the top barriers to mass squaring to a panel of celebrity judges and industry experts after the presentations we reveal which of these young innovators will win today’s prizes ten thousand dollars for our special people’s vote award 250 000 each for our two category winners the future forward award and mask appeal award and last 500 000 for the grand prize winning team our judging panel is an all-star lineup of industry executives who can be evaluating the top five finalists on criteria such as functionality and accessibility but also looking to see who has that x factor in their design to really get the public to change the way we think about wearing mass let me introduce the judges and where they’re from first june ambrose and summer chamberlain june is the creative director author costume designer celebrity style plus hashtag rock mom and social media maven and summer is a gen z entrepreneur and daughter of june ambrose next suzanne de bianca chief impact officer salesforce then ashish duwanji president lydol performance material then there’s garrett gerson ceo kalamiko’s ranch and founder of varian ryan huffy vice president of marketing and commercial excellence honeywell heather hughes whip vice president and general merchandise manager seasonal general merchandise and photo at walgreens dr kimberly prather distinguished chair in atmospheric chemistry and distinguished professor at scripps institution of oceanography and the department of chemistry and biochemistry at university of california san diego then there’s denise rutherford senior vice president of corporate affairs 3m and finally dr eric very professor ucsd department of neurosciences director of the arthur c clarke center for human imagination now i have to tell you what these teams have experienced xprize launched this global competition in july and in just under two months we received record participation with 1 000 teams from 76 countries with the same idea to build a better mask we reviewed over 400 eligible applications including a reference from a teacher or professor remember these are just kids ages 15 to 24 and selected our top 25 teams then our partners and friends at 3m and honeywell the titans of the mass manufacturing industry met with each team to determine how prototypes could be developed leading us to our top 10 semi-finalist teams with the support of lydol the ppe filtration experts 3m and honeywell produced physical prototypes in weeks just record time during a pandemic with their already outstanding quotas for daily mass making once we had our top 10 teams we opened to the public to vote on their favorite semi- finalist masters on it they were also evaluated by celebrity judges on their x factor of coolness leading us to the top five finalist teams whom you will meet today now let me introduce you to our semi-finalists team id mask this is our why doctors and nurses are tying leaky masks as tightly as possible leading to cuts and scars on their faces while fighting covid the biggest problem with masks is that they leak viruses can leak in through the gaps which endangers us all and it fogs up our glasses the id mask creates a 100 airtight seal made of an adhesive silicone polymer around the outer edge this means no leaks and that makes our mask a game changer the medical grade adhesive is gummy bear soft peels off painlessly and is so strong that ear straps are no longer needed it’s the mask of the future our disposable mask eliminates the chances of touching a contaminated mask the next day so doctors and the public can use it it costs less than a dollar to produce and will have different colors and designs to make them fashionable please help us make this a reality lena congratulations that’s i gotta say you’ve made it the top five that’s a great video um you know my first question is uh just to kind of start things off is can you tell us a little bit about the whole um kind of next-gen mass challenge like evolution with you and your team uh well we started to um by cutting out paper scraps and like just sticking on our face and seeing like what would work and what what would not um before we even got to uh the silicon adhesive like we were testing out a bunch of different materials like um i know some people were using double-sided tape and um i actually cut up one of those silicon bras but the sticky uh strapless silicone bras and it was just applying within thinner parts to the lining and we were just sticking it on and then um yeah it kind of just took off a little bit from there there was a lot of uh trial and error uh but me and my team were able to really like work through it we were really concerned about leakage that was a huge one and secondary transmission and that’s why we made our mask disposable you thought about how you would package this particular product okay um so the product will be able to fold flat like a sheet and then it will be a portable so you can just slip it into your pocket or your handbag and take it with you on the go i haven’t thought about exactly what the packaging would look like just something that will help keep the package flat it is definitely a difference from other masks that are out there but one of the things that i’m that i study is how efficient how effective they are at filtering things and the weak link i know that the material has been tested um but what how do you know like you were saying it doesn’t leak at all um did how how you know that have you been able to test that anyway i mean how do you know it’s leak tight because that if you have one little leak the rest of the material doesn’t won’t matter as much right yeah exactly uh that’s what exactly what we’re trying to prevent so the silicone adhesive is going to stick to your skin pretty firmly but not to a point will it will hurt you so it completely make the seal all around and you can test this with like a breath test so if you uh in like especially like now that the weather is cold we’ve been uh doing some breath tests uh just so we can make sure that the air doesn’t go upwards to fog up your glasses and it doesn’t leak out this way or that way question is around facial hair and the adhesive and how that might work with facial hair and if that was considered and um and how you’ll overcome that particular obstacle and then i’ll pause and ask you my second okay so for facial hair we did really think about it and we did come to the conclusion that long facial hair is not going to work very well with this mask in order for the silicon seal to completely be 100 airtight there needs to be no obstruction especially around the chin and jaw area so we decided that a little bit of stubble is okay but generally the user should be clean shaven so what are you thinking about retails and and why a customer would um buy this mask at whatever those retails are that you would be recommending and of course the retailer sets that over say an ear loop mask and the purpose of this versus kind of your standard your loop mask that would be disposable and less expensive as for how we want the pro the mask to be priced we don’t have an exact price for it just yet but we do know that we want these to be as cheap as they can be making sure that we still have enough funds to create more they only cost a dollar to produce because um the silicon seal itself only costs around 50 cents per mask and uh current n95 masks only take about 50 cents to produce so all together like around a dollar um you know i had a question around as you’re talking about using their or having this for consumers everyday people like us um you know how how are you thinking about things like um the ability to talk and like and how does the shape and the adhesion impact someone’s ability to talk and communicate and then also if you’re thinking about like eating or drinking being you know taking it off putting it back on is the adhesion such that you can do that and still maintain the seal or would you need to go and get a new mask great question i would love to answer this question so um one thing i i forgot to mention is that we’re going to be having two different masks one for consumers and one is the medical n95 that i mentioned earlier so the consumer version is going to be above 80 filtration so that it’s protective and it’s still breathable and definitely comfortable enough to wear every day for the regular consumer for talking we uh generally for like if you’re you have to have your entire jaw like open it’s going to affect a little bit but we are going to be working with that uh with the manufacturer um but so far just like a little bit of talking like regular talking like everything’s going to be okay for the part about taking it off to eat and drink we will be working with the adhesive manufacturer to adjust the stickiness so that the mask can be reapplied multiple times throughout the day and can be worn throughout the entire duration of the day lena i love that you were considerate about the straps and because quite often um you know the straps are bruising behind professionals ears they’re wearing them for a long time even you know just consumers everyday people walking the streets i love that you have eliminated that aspect with the masks like it hurts if you have glasses on and you’re trying to have the straps on like it’s very uncomfortable long term so i think it was a really good idea i have little mouse ears and masks do not stay on me so thank you absolutely yeah uh dr kim for this virus the reason we wear masks is to largely to protect others the emission what’s coming out of people and the surgeon i think it’s the same you don’t want your they don’t want the surgeon’s breath to go into wounds and other things so it’s going the other direction so you know to so then that caused the question you know how well the silicon will hold if you’re breathing out if you have some exertion you know it’s you’re gonna you could be pushing and that could create gaps have you thought of because when you get ready to test it you’re gonna have to test it you can test it should work in both directions but i can see where i wonder how sensitive how how strong the silicon holds that you wouldn’t get because just one little leak will you know that’s where all the air will go and the aerosols will flow through and you know they’ll leak out and that’s what we don’t want so have you thought about that yeah absolutely um so for the prototypes that i wore for around seven hours uh i didn’t i didn’t experience any leakage around the uh area but i i can understand where your concern is coming from so we’ve decided to make parts of the inner lining thicker especially around like the inner cheek and around like the nose and the inner right here and right here along the jaw so we’re going to thicken those areas to make sure that you get a really good stick that way when you’re talking or when you’re wearing it for long periods of time i know surgery can last for many many hours that will definitely hold up and no leaks will be created okay well i’ll just put in one plug when you get ready to do the leak tests you the way you want to look what you want to do for this particular viruses is when people speak they’re producing aerosols all the time and those will leak out and so there are ways to measure those very easily so when you get to that point you can let me know and i’ll i’ll be happy to help you awesome i really look forward to contacting you when we’re ready lena thank you congratulations uh thank you so much done an amazing job thank you for explaining your product you answered some some great questions uh gave us a lot of insight um behind your math the design your team i mean what a fantastic team you all you’ve assembled and put together team player usa 25 johns hopkins university engineering students from four countries and 14 states came together to create a mask with changeable parts primaries of first experiences living in 14 states in four countries realized that no single mass can meet everyone’s needs sometimes using clear masks sometimes you need an 85 mask in other glass a simple breathable mask will do that’s why we created a flare mask it’s a modern platform capable of adapting to your unique needs our masked frames are comfortable silicone that’s magnet for seamless walking to different attachments our clear body attachment and the bottom facing filter allowing the air in your voice to pass through while maintaining an unattractive user face our standing body attachment and flexible skeleton support your choice of filter and folds when not in use the player mask is the only mask to fully meet the diverse needs of population and overcomes all tough concerns identified by x prize in addition our team 24 has a drive initiative to take our mass to market in a week this competition will end but coconut team will not hero player not only the right mask but also the right team to meet this challenge and give the world the next-gen masking needs hi i was just gonna say that first i really like your math i think it’s actually a really cool design and i love that it’s clear you can actually still see the person talking which is very helpful i was just wondering if it comes in different sizes because my face is kind of small and most masks don’t fit my face yeah that’s a wonderful question so our mass frame that you can see here we design it from publicly available data from 2000 facial scans so it fits a lot of people perfectly but we are working on a smaller facial size and because there’s no public available data for that we’re going to work on data collection for smaller sizes so apple younger sibling he’s unfortunately remote learning um from middle school right now but we’re hoping to do facial scans for children and make this perfect shape that can fit all of them because one of the issues we found with a lot of other math where there’s no pieces adjust is that you don’t dress it correctly or you don’t dress it properly and it flocks your glass it creates all these issues so we’re going to create one solution that can work for everybody so that’s definitely in the works you know given that you are going to be able to use it multiple times is the material like will you be able to disinfect it or how how would you go about cleaning the mask yeah uh survivor design is that we completely changed um how a mesh should be so traditional surgical master disposable they look cold materials they’re meant to be just thrown away but since we have a reasonable design that can basically serve at hundreds of surgical maps we’re able to invest in higher floor materials that can be re- sanitized relatively easily so for example our frame will be a medical grade silicone so you could wipe it with a clorox wipe relatively easily and our clear body it’s going to be sterilizable as well so you can just do a simple clorox wipe on it um and in our carry case that we’re going to have for these different attachments we’re going to have a small pocket for these sanitizing materials so you could have a few products wiped or a few sprays in handy just to clean it throughout the day i i study aerosols um and i look at masks and how they how well they filter that’s something i’ve been paying a lot of attention to and so um a couple of questions a regular mask um you know like a surgical mask or an n95 you have that total area that the air is pulled through that’s filtering and so i’m wondering how you know i guess i’m wondering how you chose the size of the filter it only goes through one part correct like especially for when you have the clear frame it’s only going to have a the smaller filter and i’m guessing when i’m wondering is how how did you choose that size and and as you know moisture and things go back and forth it seems like the air flow could be affected um is that have you looked into that or thought about that i mean i’m just curious how you should yeah really really is to fit each point that we’ve been considering so for our standard bodies of course that we should because the entire surface area is a filter body it’s been concerned about where you put the filter because we put in the front space so we’re considering either the sides or the bottom and we ran uh simulations and solidworks software to kind of twofold simulations and we determined that if you place it down the curving upwards this is a majority of the breathability and benefits and there’s very little dead zones within the mask so it’s been um optimized through um the solidworks engineering software and we’ve also been talking to professors to make sure that we’re running the same relationship properly and that our uh our design is data-driven great that’s a that’s a great answer um just one more question since you have the you know the parts that are coming off and going back on it seems like there’s you know one of the weak links of any mask is how well it seals and so have you done any sort of tests on the ceiling you actually have i think sort of two surfaces that have to seal as opposed to just normally you have the one against your face you’ll have the one against your face and you’ll also have the one when you take the component off so how how are you um checking the seal that you know you’re not having leakage um of course since we’re working remotely we can have lab testing but since we designed um the silicon frame based on facial data from 3000 people it does fit well on a variety of people everyone tested there’s no large gaps uh lab testing something that we don’t want to use in the future but this is my visual assessment that there’s no major gaps along any part of the frame and the major benefit of um attaching to something like this is that because you want to keep it flexible as well these pieces are going to be like a soft silicone material that has embedded mags inside so as it puts down um it’s going to form almost like a like a gasket that’s self-compressing because these magnets will be pushing down the rubber material against the hard plastic of the frame so that way you create a tight seal and it’s not going anywhere because of the magnets are pretty strong but also pretty small hi great congratulations um i i really like the modularity as well i’m wondering i heard you had a big team working on this so i’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your teammates and what it was like doing a project like this in a virtual environment yeah so i think our large team size 24 right now it’s like a stand-up feature of um kind of our entire team throughout the entire process and it really has to change our design philosophy because our members come from 14 states and four countries some great diversity experiences from all corners of the world and so part of that is that we realize that no single mass can meet everyone’s needs so it’s been really interesting to have brainstorming sessions so we would break it up to small rooms to brainstorm and we have all these different qualities that we never thought of just one person alone and then we came back together to realize that you know we have to meet a massive meets thing meets everyone’s needs so our team has designed a solution that works for our team and since our team is a microcosm of the larger world it works for everybody so that really helps shape your design process very cool and then and as you interchange the pieces which i think is a phenomenal idea to be able to go from a cloth to a clear you know uh piece how do you ensure that it seals correctly uh over that silicone piece yeah so um on our mass frame we have a variety of magnets across and every position and then because this piece is rigid on the very front so the back of it is soft against your face but the front of it is rigid so this is going to be consistent shape across any attachment and the back of these are also relatively rigid so every time you use it it’s a perfect fit so um an example is like um apple’s magsafe for example where the max version perfectly so they’re self-aligning as well and because of that if you’re off a little bit it auto adjusts and makes a perfect fit when you swap different materials and attachments got it and just one follow-up question of that are you thinking about unique designs patterns um you know as you bring especially not the silicone the clear one but rather the the cloth based one are you thinking about you know some fun adding some fun to those components yeah um tiny that you bring up because actually but a i’m not sure if there’s something on camera but there’s a sticker of a mustache on here so this is just a sticker i had lying around i thought might be appropriate and how’d you wear it great you are thinking about it that’s wonderful tell me a little bit about how long you were able to wear a mask and did you notice any difference in comfort uh in a couple of ways for like from the beginning of the time you wore it till the end did it change in terms of how comfortable it felt and was there a difference between the clear mask and then the different feet filter media that your team developed that’s a good question so i had been wearing testing it so um for each mess i’ve been able to get on two hours of mask of wearing time and i found that it’s it’s honestly as much more comfortable as surgical masks because i wear this grocery shopping and uh because when i used to wear a surgical mask it would always block my glasses 100 of the time but since wearing both the standard and the clear versions i haven’t had any glasses vlogging and it’s been leaving no marks either because we designed it to be equal pressure among your face so you’re not going to get certain um areas of high pressure that will leave marks on your face and also um kind of interesting is that the clear bodies stayed anti-flock the entire time just for my simple hansel treatment so after hours of wearing there is it’s comfortable to me and there’s also no issues with any of the other components as well well excellent jerry congratulations to you and your team can we see that team one more time and you know i’d like to say it comes on in all right great job team thank you in a way usa unique designed to tackle breathability made from young innovators based out of hawaii we need better masks and lots of them and our unique fabrication methods make that possible using one sinusoidal cut to produce two continuous streams of organically shaped mask blanks with zero waste this is good for our fabricators environment pocketbooks and our communities the merlin mask doesn’t look like a standard mask because it isn’t one concentric corrugations allow us to finely tune the subtle balance between filter area trapped internal volume and the area of skin cover inspired by the nose we’re also able to induce a flow of air away from the face just like mother nature intended but a mask is only as good as its seal and our seal is great it gets better the harder you breathe and its narrow profile means little compression is required and that’s comfy our prototypes work sibilant implosive sounds can be easily heard and we didn’t stop refining when we hit submit three months ago we’re eager to work with the excellent partners already engaged by xprize to get these masks on the faces of those who need them brandon it’s uh great to have you on on the on the program here and congratulations congratulations to you and your team for being finals in the xprize contest a really innovative design and uh you know i’d love to kick things off with our panels here and um i yeah i wanted to touch on one of the points you hit on which was around sustainability you know this is a big problem with masks that we have today is is that they do create a lot of waste and so my question is how did you think about the trade-offs around sustainability and performance as you were thinking about your design every everything we’ve done here every design choice has a functional and an aesthetic impact and these concentric corrugations they allow us to maintain a lot of filter area you can see if i pull this out there’s a lot of filter area in there while at the same time reducing the amount of skin that’s covered by the mask these corrugations also allow us to maintain a large distance um from the lips to the closest pieces of fabric which mean that um the voice can be easily heard um i mentioned plosive and sibilance in that previous video those those uh sounds are the hardest to preserve when you’re putting something over the face because they need time to develop like if i go versus it’s much harder to hear how how do you test you’ve tested the um filtration efficiency of the material how are you going to test the um you know that it’s not leaking right so so the testing we’ve done because of cost limitations and access to equipment um has been you know simple things like uh a match or a candle putting on glasses you’re feeling cold air coming in um you know we looked into to getting a testing hood um but didn’t do that but that that’s one of the things that we really need to do first and foremost um if we’re fortunate enough to to win the x prize here see you know it’s really not obvious from the top of the mask that it wouldn’t fog your glasses so it you know i when i look at the mask it looks like a lot of other masks so what is so special that this particular design does not fog your glasses there’s two reasons um the first is a robust seal um if the perimeter seal is good you don’t have leakage um and in principle that wouldn’t fog your glasses but there’s more to it than that even if you have a perfect seal as your exhaled breath goes through the filter media it’s slowed down and made turbulent and and lingers um so even if you have a perfect seal on your mask in the right conditions if you’re not moving or there’s airflow you’ll still get glasses on and that’s where the the corrugations come in and concentrating the majority of the filter media down and low from around the lower lip to the bottom of the chin um those are those are the two big ways that we uh work against glasses fog um brandon and i as someone who runs the climate action programs for salesforce really want to say here here on the sustainability aspect of it and it made me think from a go to market perspective you may want to think about partnering with a retailer that is so strong in the sustainability space like you know a stella mccartney or um you know another like adidas or nike there’s a lot of retailers are um wanting to make a bigger move in this space so partnering with them to sort of take it to market might be a good next step for you to explore your mass kind of looks like a jet engine nozzle inlet there and it looks uh looks very aerospace aero airflow control so uh liking that very that very cool design however i’m actually a physician and uh a human tester so what i’m interested in is your human factors are your human testing process so you’ve talked a lot about design features tell us about how your team is going to finalize and test your products for human acceptance well there’s only three of us and we have done the uh most i guess market research uh we’ve been able to do which has been a lot we’ve made prototypes and we’ve given them to the people that we can access in a safe way throughout covet and said hey you know what do you think of this how does it fit you put your glasses on are they fogging up now um i got a lot of feedback that way hey brandon one thing to consider as you move forward is the durability of this design it’s great that it’s got that corrugation and that flexibility if this mask is going to be reused um how you know we have to really think that how to train the user on how to refold it after they put it through the wash or something so i think that’s going to be really important to make sure that that that it’s durable enough to go through the wash and to to get back into the right shape every time yes so brandon and uh to the rest of the team merlin thank you a really exciting design um you guys have clearly put a lot of thought and energy into this and uh look forward to seeing you where you can go with it thank you thank you all so much um some fantastic feedback team niger force nigeria two friends focusing on comfort and helping their community my name co-creators of the is master according to x-prize one of the major reasons people do not wear masks in spite of its effectiveness with the discomfort and bearing and breathing other reasons are affordability expression and eco-friendliness our max solution actually combines comfort and efficiency we believe that a next-gen solution should not be complex rather simple and unappreciative we are starting a revolution to make mass query not just the norm but to the lives our nf mass is a kitten spending anybody face piece that is lightweight transparent efficient and affordable the uniqueness of our map is simplicity supporting our products means being a part of the life-changing and generation defining solution one that is to be lucrative in this demand saturated time it will start the revolution thank you i’d like to kick it off with a question you talked about comfort so tell me a little bit about how long you’ve been able to wear this mask and have it be comfortable it’s not really obvious honestly that that wearing something almost like a cup around your face would be comfortable for a long time um thank you so much dennis uh thanks for that question i really appreciate being here um so talking about comfort we prototyped this we did a form model in a 3d print but we couldn’t get the actual material but the material that was used to prototype it from tanks to 3m is a silicon it’s a very flexible silicon material that is almost weightless you can you can squeeze it it deforms and retains it’s so weightless i mean if the comfort is very incomparable can you talk a little bit about how do you clean it um what’s required um how long does it last like that okay um thank you very much once again as um regards the use of the reusability um the mask can simply be cleaned with just mild soap and water or better seal it can simply be put in an ultraviolent scanner or an ultraviolet display to kill the gems and as well you can still reuse it and with the help of a replaceable filter we hope you can replace the filter on a daily basis or on it by daily so you’re uh you’re in um in africa and can you tell us about uh your your team how how do you plan to reach out internationally uh for your products uh as you move this along um thank you i mean thanks to this to this contest um i haven’t i’ve never been i never had any matter of able to reach out to as much people as i’ve been able to reach out to in a short span of time as as the labs and there’s been a lot of uh people reaching out and already i mean calling out or pre-ordering so to say from london from new york and saying oh would need this neither so we believe that this is a product that is universally required in demand and that it’s not limited by the region but race but culture by the ethnicity or once gender is going to be globally accepted we just need to position ourselves strategically such that we can find a very good uh a very good channel to market this and make it accepted um one of the questions i have is you know you in a regular mask or surgical mask you have air so i i study masks so you have air that flows you know can flow through the whole all the material whereas this mask has one little region right where it can go through and so it it’s the question i have is that puts a lot of like if that starts to get a little plugged up um you know over time if the longer you wear it then it’s going to put more pressure on the seals and then you can get more leaks and so a how long can you wear this and how are you going to test you know how well it’s holding up from a leakage perspective okay thank you so much that’s a very insightful question and i really appreciate that because that’s one of the things that we are looking to take forward in the next stage of our prototyping and development um as a matter of fact the first prototype and test that was uh done for us just tells us that we wouldn’t we would need to increase the surface area of the uh perforation so yes it’s really spot-on so i’ve noted that and in terms of the pressure you’re really right about the pressure so going forward it would just be trying to be trying to find the balance in terms of the surface area and the the size of the mass such that it doesn’t really talk about it’s really pretty but we have this clustering trust me samuel and io could you tell us a little bit about the inspiration of the name and the brand design that you’re wearing on your t-shirts um we’ve come a long way and i i really i really wanted to to pay a very huge uh upload and respect everyone who’s lost their life because of the civil unrest in nigeria past couple of months but one of the things that has caused us to actually enter for this competition is trying to put our footprints on that global global state telling the world that yes that we maybe nigerians some things might not be perceived right but deep down we still have we we have what it takes to compete on a global stage to solve real world problems and also to contribute to to to to global advancement and develop so the name niger first is so the forces um sort of epitomizes the the the strength of the youths and how and how we fight we reversal i mean just share resilience through every i mean every um roadblock and pitfalls that we find ourselves still trying to you know push ourselves and keep going you know put nigeria on the map so that’s the journey that’s the name thank you team niger first congratulations your your design is really stylish it’s yeah and in addition to being stylish it’s simple functional and safe i love the energy and the inspiration with how you all came up with this design and here’s where i would advise you as to what you should do next focus on three things focus on how you can bring scalability to reduce cost that’s point one point two think about the packaging of the of the shell for multiple uses are you going to give them a box to put the shell in and reuse it every time and third think about the supply chain and availability of those raw materials the filter materials for the right shape how are you going to constantly provide that supply chain for the user that buys the shell excellent job you know i’m really excited and you know i wish you the best of luck so i have a question around the comfort of the mask so i have i live in chicago area it gets really really cold in the winter and snowy and it gets really hot and humid in the summer and i was thinking about the material and how comfortable will that be when it’s hot and humid in that summer weather based on research silicon has been known to be one of the most friendly and most comfortable materials so aside that our mask is lightweight aside that our max distraps gives you effort or gives you the opportunity to wind it around your ear and when you feel your ears are getting numb and you just feel like doing something else you can effortlessly change it to wind around your head on the go you don’t need to go around with an extra strap or go around with an additional accessory it’s just you your mask your strap clip around your ear a wind around your ear clip around your head that is all yeah hey dalio and samuel thank you so much uh just to wrap it up it’s a fantastic design it’s simple it appeals to so many of us because we can see each other smiling i you’ve got beautiful smiles it’s great to see your smiles it’s what i miss most of having to wear a mask so thank you and that straw hole again i’ll come back to that being able to stay hydrated you know no matter what the temperature is um you talked a little bit about doing design um changes good luck with that you know i know you’ve got some work to do on the design and that filter piece so so keep up the good work this is a very unique product and and good luck to both of you thank you thank you thank you so much team luminosity lab usa a team from an arizona state university student-run lab created the flow mask in a complex world the answers to most pressing challenges are simple but when slowing covet 19 is as easy as wearing a mask how do we get the whole world on board the answer is flowmast designed for simplicity everyone loves fancy gadgets but what we need right now is a mask that people will want to wear changing social norms takes years we need a mask that looks like a common mask without all the issues that come with one tired of a hot stuffy mask that flogs your glasses simple want something professional with style simple you need to breathe easy while still protecting others simple high-tech solutions can take years to be implemented the flowmast is designed with one goal in mind rapid adoption a simple design with accessible materials and existing manufacturing processes means one thing production at a global scale with ease that’s why the flow mask represents the next generation of mass leading the charge in solving society’s most pressing issue now slowing cobia 19 and saving lives well hi nikhil and hi katie welcome to uh to joining us here the judges we are really looking forward to asking you some questions about your products um but a big thank you i know you guys have a team working on this and i think you’ve done some honorable work even before the mass and uh so big congratulations to you on some of that technology capabilities that you built first off so i work in retail so if i immediately go to some commercialization questions i’m curious around what you’re thinking around costs and retails and how you’re going to show our customers that this is a differentiated mask what we’ve done is some very preliminary cost quotes regarding manufacturing this at scale we know that for a minimum order quantity of around 10 000 units we’re looking at costs less than a dollar per mask for to produce the reusable version of this mask and we suspect that will still remain under a dollar to produce um as far as the disposable version is concerned given that the light all material that we use is not particularly expensive and will still keep us under that dollar cost for production and so of course that is particularly important as one of the things in the video mentioned you know accessibility is particularly important to us we want this map to be available to everybody and we think that we can offer it at a low price point to which it will be accessible very helpful thank you for the clarity around the pricing and um you know just being in the retail environment i can say um study the pricing out there if you’re able to keep it under a dollar you might even be able to um think about two packs three packs and and stuff like that for customers congratulations uh team luminosity making the finals uh that’s a really great achievement and we’re super proud of you for uh for getting so far i guess i’m the i guess i’m the self-designated guy around this question i’m a physician and i wear a mask all the time for work and one of the things is the smell i always say i’m smelling my uh smelling my mask so what what does your mask smell like i think um you know a lot of that smell that you’re talking about right is oftentimes smell that occurs because um the air that you breathe through your mouth is reflected onto the same surface that you’re breathing in with your nose and so that’s kind of the uniqueness about our bifurcated filtration chamber is that the air that you breathe from your mouth is inherently separate because of the design from the air you breathe through your nose so regardless of whatever you’ve eaten that day let’s say or whatever it is that you know could be coming out of your mouth what you’re going to be smelling is constant fresh air coming from the nose part of the bifurcated filtration chamber and so to hopefully answer your question our mask smells clean all the time whether you’re running in it whether you’re you know working and doing important things in the clinic or whether you’re at home kind of just relaxing thank you all right so we’re gonna shift over to kim and she’s gonna ask questions hello well um congratulations on uh making it to this point and um i uh i really enjoyed actually uh your presentation your presentation that you gave it was very clear and covered a lot of information so you did great on that it stood out um so i i study aerosols um i look at how those pesky viruses get through masks in and out and um one thing that um that is known as you know the weak link of them a lot of masks is you know i know that you’ve tested the material um and but but what about the seal how how have you or are you testing um to make sure you know the seal that that is holding so that you’re not having viruses leaking out pour in yeah great question and that’s something we put a lot of deliberation into like um do we want something like a silicone seal or do we want kind of this typical more fabric and in the end we went with as good of a seal as like fabric and uh this material can provide with this type of comfortable mask so we have a chin elastic we have adjustable elastic so they can get it as like flush through their face along with a very conforming nose bridge and then we we chose that over silicone or another material because we have to think about people like nick with beards uh and then people who have allergies or they just aren’t aren’t ready for that material that was really the big thing is i mean we’re hitting a peak right now especially we’re both in the united states um we’re we just set a record the last couple days for most cases uh most hospitalizations so we’re really focusing on a mass that we could get out there as soon as possible that we could get as many people wearing as soon as possible so we didn’t want something that came off as new technology we wanted something that looks like a fixed version of old technology that people would feel comfortable wearing and that people wouldn’t feel like they have to stand out in the crowd or get questions about but instead a cheap incredibly accessible um one that still got as good of a seal as good as filtration efficiency and without the other issues that come with the mat nikhil and katie congratulations um it’s i mean it’s commendable that you guys made it this far i love your mask i love the point some of the notes i took down are the fact that you know you are going to adopt a um an infrastructure that already exists so you can really get these masks out there quickly uh and a scale um you know the one thing i asked you guys to look into is sustainability especially as you’re using cut and sew as a means to create these masks i think that’s going to be really important because single use single use masks are becoming uh incredibly taxing on our environment uh the bifurcated chamber is a really interesting design i mean that is something that uh currently is not always thought of when people are making masks it’s comfort right um how long you wear it uh how long the wearer is going to keep it and keep it on so i think that is for me that is a um that really sets you apart from a lot of the mass that uh that got presented on here today and you know and the fact that you’ve gotten a lot of the testing and are actually to production ready so um you know coven 19 is is you know it’s not slowing down here in the us and the faster we can get masks out to everybody is going to help curb the spread so congratulations love the mask really love the bifurcated design i think it’s really it’s a really smart attribute something that um i would hone in in your marketing and really focus on that because heat dissipation is such a big issue where people are wearing masks that um they just become uncomfortable so congratulations uh team i really liked your name the flow mask that’s really a a really good name it’s powerful it’s distinctive of how you’ve come up with it i also like the fact that you’re thinking of alternate medical grade materials for filtration but but but in this field where there are many people who think about medical grade filters and pockets for media i think my advice to you in marketing this is to think about how will you cause the shift from people who are used to wearing the simple blue surgical masks or going on amazon.com to find these alternate pocket masks to shift towards flow masks you know think about how you create a following for that and if you do that i believe flow mask has a very good potential again congratulations for being in the top five and i wish you the best of luck i will say you know what i’m hearing from you you have innovation right so something very differentiated from the marketplace you should you showed great agility having to you know deconstruct and reconstruct your mass based on feedback you received during testing and you know on top of that just flexibility you’re able to change your fabrics uh that are visible to the customer which is going to give you a lot of opportunity to just even add other points of differentiation so i really want to say it’s incredible and uh i i’m very thankful that we had the opportunity to hear all about it so thank you thank you guys so much for taking the time to chat with us today and uh for your interest both in our mask and moreover the work that you guys do every day to you know help our communities as we move through these difficult times we really appreciate it thank you uh hello teams my name is kevin blank i’m the founder executive chairman and brand chief of under armour i want to start by congratulating you on making it this far the top five of the xprize one million dollar next-gen mass challenge that is a ton of money so before we go any further just everybody take a breath and understand what could be coming to you for our winners i also have heard that x prize received a record- breaking number of submissions from around the world so each of you just being named a finalist is a massive accomplishment congratulations to you this contest is the perfect illustration of the entrepreneurial spirit that runs in the veins of so many around the globe i believe it is one of the greatest things that we can give to one another is that entrepreneurial spirit and belief and dream it’s a relentless focus on problem solving and turning ideas into action is that that’s what any entrepreneur does is we solve problems and it’s with that same focus and tenacity that i actually founded under armor back in 1996. it’s been 25 years since then and i can tell you that from day one support for our communities has been in our dna and that’s even more true and even more important today a great story of the the pride that i have for our team is what we did when the pandemic began to set in back in february and march we received a phone call from johns hopkins hospital and they said the number one issue they had wasn’t a shortage of hospital beds but it was ppe and they asked we could do anything about it so through a partnership with hopkins and finding a fabric that was domestically based that we could get to our cutting facility in baltimore we also needed to figure out how to manufacture after we cut this fabric into a a working mask the the design our team came up with was actually wasn’t manufacturing at all but was an origami design that could be hand assembled by hundreds of under armour volunteers giving tens of thousands of hours to build more than five million mass in gowns for johns hopkins and more than 40 surrounding hospitals we then took that expertise and actually layered it into a commercial opportunity by building something called the ua sports mask which we’re going to build millions of units of this year and has become the top selling skew for under armour of 2020. adversity is certain guys our ability to be agile and to react to it is what makes us different and that’s what makes you an entrepreneur so the problem that you’re solving for today is in the face of a global pandemic that’s impacted so many lives and is very important exactly the most important of our time what i’ve seen in your pitch films is so inspiring and it really captures the entrepreneurial spirit of this generation and it gives me great hope for the future seeing so many young and extremely talented problem solvers tackling this challenge head-on luminosity lab team id mask polar niger force team merlin across the board you guys impressed everyone the judges and i’ve been able to see the films also and i would be just as curious about wondering who gets picked each one of you is worthy of winning but we know that only can be a few i want to tell you you made the process incredibly difficult on the judges and to those that are selected congratulations it’s a big deal but don’t ever rest don’t take this money this is not the end line this is just the beginning keep pushing just remember to always move forward and to those who aren’t selected the message is the same never rest and keep pushing it’s a great sense of pride that you should have and confidence that you’ve gotten to this point that’s because it’s bright entrepreneurs like you that are going to make the world great and that we are counting on you thanks kevin under armour continues to change the game with our own sports mask which if you remember sold out in less than an hour back in june around the time this xprize challenge launched their team has been an active challenge partner and provided innovation advice for these teams our hope is that our challenge winners have the same success okay guys tonight mark benioft and i are giving away one million dollars with an added bonus award for minor we have four prizes tonight ten thousand dollars for our special people’s vote award 250 000 each for our two category winners the future forward award and the mask appeal award and last five hundred thousand dollars for the grand prize winning team and the winner is team novice from india our first category tonight is the future forward award chosen by the panel of judges the mass that really felt like it was taking us into where the future of mask is headed congratulations to jerry leader of team player for thinking outside of the box in their design team blair is winning a total of 250 000 thank you so much yeah my team and i are absolutely ecstatic in this afternoon we’re really excited uh thank you to everyone who helped us along the way all our mentors and everyone’s given us advice along the way we’re super excited to manufacture and patent and bring our mass to market so thank you all thank you so much and congratulations the second category is the mask appeal award given to the team who the judges believed would be the masked most widely adopted by the public we hope to continue to see this team update their mask so that people all over the world can one day be wearing them if adaya and samuel who make up the team niger force from nigeria you are the winners of the mass appeal award and have won 250 000 god this is unbelievable this is unbelievable firstly i want to say big thank you to the donors and sponsor sponsors of this project uh mark and jim um to express the organizers and all the other supporters you all are amazing and we wouldn’t have come this far without your help through and through you guys have all been amazing all we can say is we thank you we in nigeria are super super super super excited and really appreciative of this and we really can’t even portray or exhibit excitement this is not a real face we are really trying to contain it but thank you so much and finally there is the million dollar mass champion the grand prize winner of the x promise next gen master challenge the grand prize winner is team luminosity lab velocity lab is nikhil and katie thank you so much to the x prize team to jim it’s the mark benioff uh to peter diamandis we are absolutely thrilled and we’re so grateful to be receiving this award we can’t wait to keep uh keep pushing these masks forward and doing what we can to help prevent coveted night team thank you so much congratulations we cannot wait to wear your mask and contain the scourge that is coveted 19. congratulations to all our gen z winners i’m so proud of you stay up to date on the teams and their journeys by visiting xprize.

org 59:16 - mast and following at xprize on all social media platforms thank you and good night so so you.