XPRIZE recently held a science-fiction competition open to the global public. All submissions were reviewed by a panel of well-known published science-fiction writers including Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman. My consolation prize (spoiler: I didn’t win) is knowing those two have read my writing, even if they felt ambivalent about it. The competition challenged writers to create a vision of the world twenty years from now. XPRIZE represents an aspiration for exponential technologies and innovative solutions to the world’s most consequential problems. They organize global challenges with million dollar prizes to tackle problems like cancer, learning, and carbon pollution. Their latest challenge aims to end water scarcity, and I am leading a team competing for the 1.75 Million prize. We have designed a system that pulls water from the atmosphere using only renewable energy sources. You can read more about that here. Needless to say, XPRIZE wanted writers to share optimistic visions of the future. They wouldn’t have seen any work analogous to Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale.
I submitted a short story based on their prompt called “Cigarettes Screaming.” I wanted my story to have a background of exciting progress but with a timeless story. They recently announced the winning story “Dido’s Lament” which you can read here.
Below is my submission. Please leave a comment with any thoughts you may have!
polymathematics 
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