Bell Labs Announces The 2015 Prize Now Open To Game-changing Ideas With The Power To Disrupt Communications

-- Second annual Bell Labs Prize contest kicks off with $175,000 in cash prizes, collaboration with world-leading researchers and $100,000 to the academic institution associated with first place winner

MURRAY HILL, New Jersey, March 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Bell Labs, the industrial research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, announced the Second Annual Bell Labs Prize. The Bell Labs Prize is a competition that gives researchers, in participating countries around the globe, the chance to introduce their ideas to the world, and collaborate with world-renowned Bell Labs researchers.

The Bell Labs Prize winners will take home cash awards worth as much as $100,000, and the chance to further develop their ideas at Bell Labs. The goal of the Prize is to allow innovators around the globe to:

• Collaborate with the global Bell Labs community of researchers to 'change the game' in science, engineering, mathematics, or computer science
• Tackle the great challenges in communications, collaboration and connectivity that will enable the future 10 years from now, by finding solutions that are 10x better that today's solutions in one or more dimensions

"Coming on the heels of last year's hugely successful competition where we saw some phenomenal ideas ranging from social networks to Bio-networks, to wearable networks, we expect this year's competition to provide the same impact...or more," said Marcus Weldon, President of Bell Labs. "We think that the energy, innovation and collaboration the Bell Labs Prize brings to our industry and our research community is incredible and we strongly believe the winning entries will have the power to fundamentally change our world in profound ways."

About the Bell Labs Prize

The Bell Labs Prize is a competition rewarding 10x game-changing proposals in the field of information and communications technologies and related software systems and applications. The competition is open to anyone in one of the participating countries, who 'owns' an idea and meets the eligibility requirements.

Three prize winners will receive a grant of either $100,000 (grand prize), $50,000 (second prize) or $25,000 (third prize). Additionally, through the process, Bell Labs may engage with other contest participants as part of the company's recruitment investment in top talent. The deadline to enter the first phase of the contest is April 22, 2015. For more information, visit the Bell Labs Prize web site. No purchase or payment necessary to enter the competition. Void where prohibited.

2014 Bell Labs Prize Winners

In December of 2014 the $100,000 first prize was awarded to Emmanuel Abbe, assistant professor at Princeton University for his work around Shannon Theory of Social Networks and Beyond; The $50,000 second prize was presented to Patrick Reynaert, associate professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium on Gigabits Through Plastic; and the $25,000 third prize went to the team of Matilde Sanchez Fernandez, Ana Garcia Armada and Eva Rajo-Iglesias all from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain whose project was called Unleash the Wireless Power of your Device: Blended Antenna HUBs for your Unconstrained Mobile Cloud Experience.

About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)

Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP networking, ultra-broadband access and cloud technology specialist. We are dedicated to making global communications more innovative, sustainable and accessible for people, businesses and governments worldwide. Our mission is to invent and deliver trusted networks to help our customers unleash their value. Every success has its network.

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