Public Innovator FAQs

Challenge.Gov, managed by Technology Transformation Services (TTS), within the General Services Administration, is the official hub for prize competitions across the U.S. federal government. Through this platform, federal agencies engage public solvers in prize competitions and crowdsourcing campaigns to identify innovative solutions to important issues.

A prize competition (also referred to as a “challenge,” "prize challenge," "competition," "incentive prize" or any combination thereof) is a way for federal agencies to crowdsource and engage public innovators directly to find interesting ideas or solutions to important problems.

Since 2010, the U.S. government has run over 1,600 prize competitions - engaging public solvers ranging from students and hobbyists to small business owners and academic researchers. Longitude and ship navigation, Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, even initial designs for the U.S. Capitol and White House—all were the result of open prize competitions. Even those self-driving vehicles got their start in federal prize competitions too!

More recently, challenges have produced concepts for the next “lunar loo” (space toilet), an improved digital wallet user interface, protecting fish from water infrastructure, opioid detection in international mail, and “getting out the count” for the census.

Challenge.Gov is open to the general public. Through this site you can:

• Learn about current and past federal prize competitions.
• Follow a prize competition - allowing you to get important updates and announcements directly to your email.
• Share about a prize competition on social media or via email.
• Submit a solution directly to a prize competition and more!

Rules for participating and submitting solutions to prize competitions and crowdsourcing campaigns vary. Check the guidelines posted on an individual prize competition to determine if you’re eligible to participate.

Stay up to date with the latest news, updates, and challenges posted by subscribing to the Challenge.Gov newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter.

Challenge.Gov is a crowdsourcing platform that allows the federal government to engage with the public to identify innovative solutions to important issues. When you create a Challenge.Gov account, you’ll be able to:

• Track which prize competitions you are following.
• Save prize competitions to a dashboard for easy reference.
• Submit a solution to a prize competition that is collecting submissions via the Challenge.Gov portal.
• Review and edit your submissions until the close date and time (for prize competitions using the Challenge.Gov portal).

Click the “Create Account” button in the upper right corner of Challenge.Gov to get started. See the step-by-step instructions below for details. Note: Challenge.Gov uses Login.gov to manage user accounts and system access. Visit Login.gov for more information.

1. Click the “Create Account” button in the upper right corner.
2. Click the “Accept and Sign-in” button to acknowledge the terms of use.
3. Click the “Create an account” button.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Check the box to accept the Login.gov Rules of Use.
6. Click the "Submit" button.
7. Check your email for a message from Login.gov with the subject line “Confirm your email”.
8. Click the “Confirm email address” button in the email message. This will take you back to the Login.Gov website.
9. Enter your desired Login.gov / Challenge.Gov password.
10. Click the "Continue" button.
11. Follow the onscreen prompts to set up a second layer of security. Visit Login.gov help to learn more about each authentication option.
12. Enter the one-time security code from your selected authentication method.
13. Click the “Submit” button.
14. Click the “Agree and continue” button to confirm and activate your account

Click the “Login” button in the upper right corner of Challenge.Gov to get started. See the step-by-step instructions below for details.

Note: Challenge.Gov uses Login.gov to manage user accounts and system access. Visit Login.gov for more information.

1. Click "Login" in the upper right corner
2. Click "Accept and Sign-in" to acknowledge the terms of use
3. Enter the Email address and Password associated with your account
4. Click "Sign in"
5. Authenticate your account using the security method you selected when you created your account.

If you’re having trouble logging into Challenge.Gov, send us an email at team@challenge.gov with the subject line “Challenge.Gov solver account access issue.” Please be sure to send your email from the email account you used to set up your Challenge.Gov account.