{"id":12099,"date":"2019-04-19T19:03:17","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T02:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=12099"},"modified":"2019-04-19T19:03:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-20T02:03:17","slug":"go-flys-phase-ii-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/go-flys-phase-ii-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Fly\u2019s Phase II Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

One complaint frequently heard is that aviation doesn\u2019t necessarily encourage participation by women, despite historical examples from Harriet Quimby to Jeanna Yeager.\u00a0\u00a0 GoFly is a competition thought up by Gwen Lighter,<\/a> a lawyer with degrees from Brown (summa cum laude) and Harvard (cum laude) Universities. It has a $2 million prize package backed by Boeing and others.\u00a0 Ms. Lighter describes her brainchild as follows: \u201cThe $2 million GoFly competition encourages mad scientists and daredevils to come as close as possible to Star Wars\u2019s light cycles, James Bond\u2019s jetpack, Marty McFly\u2019s hoverboard, or any other flying dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five Phase 2 winners exemplify the open rule-book approach<\/a> around which the contest is organized.\u00a0 Lighter explained it two years ago in an NPR interview<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cWhat the device looks like and how it works is up to the innovators.\u00a0 We do not mandate that it’s something you get into like a car, or something that you strap on your back, or something that you stand on. We don’t want to say that there is any right way of doing it, since that only limits the possibilities.”<\/p>\n