Second annual Bell Labs Prize contest kicks off with $175,000 in cash prizes, collaboration with world-leading researchers and $100,000 to the academic institution associated with first place winner

Bell Labs, the industrial research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, has announced the Second Annual Bell Labs Prize. The Bell Labs Prize is a competition that gives researchers, in participating countries around the globe, the chance to introduce their ideas to the world, and collaborate with world-renowned Bell Labs researchers.

The Bell Labs Prize winners will take home cash awards worth as much as $100,000, and the chance to further develop their ideas at Bell Labs.  The goal of the Prize is to allow innovators around the globe to:

    --  Collaborate with the global Bell Labs community of researchers to 'change the game' in science, engineering, mathematics, or computer science
    --  Tackle the great challenges in communications, collaboration and connectivity that will enable the future 10 years from now, by finding solutions that are 10x better that today's solutions in one or more dimensions

"Coming on the heels of last year's hugely successful competition where we saw some phenomenal ideas ranging from social networks to Bio-networks, to wearable networks, we expect this year's competition to provide the same impact...or more," said Marcus Weldon, President of Bell Labs. "We think that the energy, innovation and collaboration the Bell Labs Prize brings to our industry and our research community is incredible and we strongly believe the winning entries will have the power to fundamentally change our world in profound ways."