Red Bull Flugtag (Flying Day)

The Red Buill Flugtag is a human-powered aviation contest that combines innovation with creativity and showmanship. Let me translate: you're more likely to see a giant bag of beer (or energy)-soaked French fries try to take off than a human-powered plane as practical as a bicycle. Don't discount the fun, though - they show an X Wing attempt, and I've seen X Wing model rockets, too.

From the What is Flug? site, here's a brief overview:

Red Bull Flugtag challenges teams of everyday people to build homemade, human-powered flying machines and pilot them off a 30-foot high deck in hopes of achieving flight! Flugtag may mean "flying day" in German, but all these crafts ultimately splash into the waters below. They are judged not only on their flight's distance, but creativity and showmanship as well.

As you can see, distance is a factor ... so it counts as a technology innovation prize. There's more at Life in the Fast Lane.

I couldn't find the Yahoo News! article whose headline I noticed yesterday, but this is probably what it was about.