That'd be a stretch. The Ansari X Prize led to a bunch of companies pursuing a goal with little commercial value and few designs with orbital aspirations. The winner led to a costly, dead-end design that has still yet to fly again for suborbital tourism, killed four people along the way, and will never service orbit. The rest of the companies are either dead or vaporware.
That said, I'm generally in favor of prize-based challenges to spur development at lower cost, as long as you aren't forced to set a goal that's entirely tangential to what you want out of industry. Newt Gingrich is a notable supporter of the idea, but I'm not aware of any other prominent politicians who support it.
That said, the challenge is a goal that, if accomplished, results in some foundation capability (like vehicle navigation in the 'real' world). I was hoping the robotics challenge that DARPA has been running would have similar benefits but those efforts don't seem nearly as applicable to everyday stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)
The Spirit of St. Louis crossing the Atlantic was for a prize, and I believe an inspiration for the current X-Prize.
I don’t think we need “grand challenges” but simply challenges, to help get us to successive breakthroughs.
I’ve thrown this out before, but a Kickstarter for these “challenges“, with well-defined goals might help accelerate technological progress.
A contest, equally open to all, certainly feels like an appropriate proxy.
http://som.yale.edu/peter-thiel-yale-we-wanted-flying-cars-i...
The goal might not be a marketable solution but a step in the desired direction. I don’t know the limits of this type of prize but it’s worth pursuing:
There are also various initiatives and competitions in the "sustainable living" space that fit the bill, such as https://www.solardecathlon.gov
In my notebook I sketched out a possible windmill / pump idea that would pump water to a reservoir which, when full would 'flush' for all of the commodes it served. Challenges are odors and blockages, and a reliable sluice system.
And what would it be like if you let people cook with fire in their space? (lots of small spaces in Brazil and India with simple three stone type cookfires. Is it possible to accommodate something like that without creating an undue fire risk?
[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/28/san-jose-proposes-just...
They are high-efficiency, low-smoke wood stoves and the company actually tries to make a difference to people that rely on fire for cooking: https://www.bioliteenergy.com/pages/mission
I've had the camp stove for a couple of years and it works really well. I wouldn't recommend using it indoors (the monoxide risk if nothing else), but it definitely fits in with the off-grid movement.
I wonder if anyone would sponsor a prize for an 'off grid' sustainable living space. People create slums and homeless encampments out of a variety of cast off materials, is there a way to create housing for people which would be safer and enhance their quality of life without also creating a public burden? Perhaps that is a pipe dream but it is something I wonder about.