XPrize’s Peter Diamandis Transitions from CEO to Executive Chairman

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*This story has been updated from its original version.

The founder of Culver City’s XPrize Foundation, Peter Diamandis, will transition to the role of executive chairman at the nonprofit technology competition.

Marcus Shingles, who previously served as a partner at Deloitte Consulting’s L.A. office in the firm’s innovation group, will take over as chief executive.

In addition to his work with XPrize, Diamandis will continue in his leadership roles at Singularity University, Human Longevity Inc. and Planetary Resources Inc.. Forbes also reported in November that he is raising $200 million for a new venture capital fund.

XPrize, founded in 1995, runs competitions for development of moon-shot technologies. XPrize famously gave $10 million to Scaled Composites of Mojave for launching the first private astronaut into space.

Since launching its first prize, XPrize has organized competitions sponsored by corporate donors for the development of a variety of technologies, including an advanced sea-floor mapping system, a lunar rover, and carbon dioxide conversion processes.

Shingles said XPrize plans to put greater emphasis on making its competitions more accessible to the public. For example, the nonprofit is looking at ways to use mobile apps to help contestants find potential collaborators.

“We can launch prizes now that don’t require a lot of heavy lifting infrastructure,” he said, adding that mobile phone computing power should enable more people to participate in XPrize competitions. “The democratization of technology is making everybody a problem solver, not just government or big corporations.”

Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.

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