Bennett Awards created a set of unique custom awards for the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. The goal of the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE is to accelerate the development of unmanned and autonomous systems and sensors for deep-sea exploration. A total of five uique awards were presented by the XPRIZE organization.

For the Grand Prize awards, Bennett Awards created custom awards combining a fabricated aluminum base topped with a custom acrylic block sculpture. The base of the winner’s prize was gold-plated, while the runner-up base was finished as brushed aluminum. The bases featured customized engravings of the award name, winner name, and XPRIZE logo.

The Grand Prize winner was GEBCO-NF Alumni. They received $4 million and a Grand Prize award created by Bennett Awards. GEBCO stands for “General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans”. The GEBCO-NF Alumni Team includes 16 alumni of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Postgraduate Training Program at the University of New Hampshire. Rochelle Wigley and Yulia Zarayskaya led the 14-nation team, which integrated existing technologies and ocean-mapping experience in a robust and low-cost unmanned surface vessel, the SeaKIT. Team Kuroshio from Japan was the runner up, winning $1 million and a custom Grand Prize Runner-Up award created by Bennett Awards. The other finalists for the Grand Prize included f ARGGONAUTS Fraunhofer IOSB from Germany, Team CFIS from Switzerland,Team Kuroshio from Japan, and Team Tao from the U.K.

The results were revealed at an awards ceremony hosted at the world-renowned Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, part of the Oceanographic Institute, Prince Albert I of Monaco Foundation. The awards were presented to recipients by Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE.