Paris and Los Angeles — On February 14th, online problem-solving platform hypios.com launched its first-ever “A Problem to Love” promotion. The company committed to pay a total of $50,000 to solvers of two of the world’s most compelling problems.

Two prizes were offered: the public prize, based on overall popularity and votes for a given problem; and the jury prize, chosen based on merit, feasibility and other factors by a jury of five seasoned innovation experts.

Submissions were open for one month. The winning problems appeared on hypios’ solutions marketplace today, following jury deliberation and a voting period. The winner of the public prize, as determined by the total number of user votes, was “Miracle Cure for CO2.” Contributed by CEO and founder Jennifer Indovina of Tenrehte Technologies, the problem seeks a clean source of energy that is 50% cheaper than today’s energy costs, in addition to a means to distribute electricity worldwide for $0.02 kilowatt-hours or less.

“I am honored to be the winner of the hypios ‘A Problem to Love’ public prize,” Indovina stated. “It’s thrilling to see how many people understand that our future on this planet requires that we move away from fossil fuels as a source of energy and material creation.”

“Miracle Cure for CO2″ received a total of 3146 public votes, and was published on the platform for a promised $20,000 to the Solver, payable by hypios.

Jury prize winner Jay Cousins, whose problem was chosen by five judges, submitted his problem, “Biodegradable home made plastic,” on behalf of himself, Mendel Heit, Jessica Altenburger and Christopher Doering – all members of shared project Open Design City. The problem seeks a recipe for biodegradable plastic in homes, using readily-obtainable ingredients. It was posted on hypios’ platform for a prize of $30,000 promised to the winning Solver.

“It’s fantastic that the hypios jury recognize the value and potential of Open Source materials, especially those that are also sustainable and easy to access,” Cousins emphasized. “We hope that this prize will motivate further innovation in this field and that competitors can find their own solutions to collaborate in an open fashion to advance our collective cause.”

Judges that reviewed the problems included Senior Mechanical Engineer of Battery Technology Wes Hermann of Tesla Motors; Professor James Hendler, assistant dean of information technology and web science at Rensselaer; Dr. Simone De Liberato, head of hypios’ research team and theoretical physicist; Professor Luis Mier Y Teran Romero of Northwestern University’s physics department; and Assistant Professor Dr. Priscilla Fonseca of Drexel University’s CAEE department.

For his part, hypios CEO Oussama Ammar pointed out that both problems were clearly connected to ecological sustainability. “When you make the effort to create an enviromentally sustainable solution, you have a tool that is more long-term than more immediately convenient alternatives,” he pointed out. “It’s exciting to think that the hypios community may yield two solutions that, in the right hands, could change human industry as a whole.”

Public prize winner Indovina highlighted this point. “The current oil spill catastrophe in the US Gulf is just another historical proof that we need to quickly find energy solutions that are clean, cheap, and abundant.”

Solutions for both problems must be turned in by December 8, 2010. Should solvers for either problem be found, hypios shall pay the award amount for both solutions, and IP rights will be transferred to the Indovina and Cousins for the development of their projects.