At the beginning of this interview, I found myself standing on the runway of a remote long-range rifle training course. As I looked out past the hangar doors, I watched an Ironman triathlete exit a single-prop plane through a billowing fireball, unscathed. It was a woman. MacKenzie Ward, like other well-known heroes, maintains her everyday alter-ego with a pair of thick framed glasses.
At first glance, few might suspect this Oklahoma-native and Stanford Grad (with hobbies like democratizing health care, and disrupting the real estate industry) could swim, bike, and run superhuman distances. But I digress. I met her at this remote location with the intention to interview her about her run in the XPRIZE Visioneers Challenge. I got a whole lot more, and my eyebrows singed in the process.
MacKenzie’s incentive prize exposure began in March, 2016
Mackenzie heard the founder of HeroX, Christian Cotichini, present at a Genius Network event in Scottsdale Arizona. Inspired, she started exploring HeroX as an innovator, in search of problems to solve.
When she discovered the XPRIZE Visioneers Challenge, she saw her opportunity. Following three years with the Oklahoma Life Science Fund and OwlPal, Mackenzie had identified an unfilled need. From that knowledge, she created the HealthCare Vision 2020 Challenge concept. The challenge concept seeks smartphone technology capable of monitoring irregular breathing. The winning solution would predict serious health complications like asthma attacks, COPD, and SIDS. This would be a life-saving technology.
From Incentive Prize Competitor to Challenge Designer
After winning the Visioneers Challenge, MacKenzie wasn’t only awarded a cash prize. She found herself working for XPRIZE and HeroX as a Challenge Designer. In short, she went full-circle in one shot. Not too shabby.
With this development, Mackenzie became location-independent. Able to work from anywhere, she's empowered to travel the world and do the work she loves. Talk about having your cake and eating it, too!
When Mackenzie isn't designing challenges or dominating epic triathlons, she’s scuba diving, FaceTiming with family, playing cards with her dog Lucky, or cooking butternut squash ravioli over a backcountry campfire. What a life.
When I asked MacKenzie what HeroX might do to improve, she said:
"I really want to provide helpful feedback, but HeroX has deployed a model that learns from failures just as much as learning from successes. So, the way to improve is to increase exposure or experience, and that’s just what they’re doing."
How to Innovate
As HeroX develops and improves as a platform, we love sharing innovator stories from within our community.
If you would like to share your story or tell us about another hero, send us a line! We'd love to talk.
