What would you do with $100 million to make the world a better place?

It's a great question, isn't it?

And it's one that leaves open a wealth of possibilities.

My name's Ed Butler, and this... a wealth of possibilities.

My name's Ed Butler and this is the 100 million dollar question on the BBC World Service.

We decided not to be insular about it, Let's ask the world with a hundred million dollars.

What problem can you solve?

The MacArthur Foundation based in Chicago is one of the world's largest private philanthropic

organizations with an endowment worth $6 billion. It's famous for its genius grants, and in 2016, it decided that it wanted to do philanthropy

a bit differently betting a gigantic chunk of money a 100 million dollar

bet on a single world-changing project. It's called the

100 and change competition and Cecilia Conrad's in charge of it.

There's been a critique of philanthropy that argues we are too insular, that we make decisions that are not

transparent about what we're going to work on and why, that we don't focus enough on impact, and that we don't focus enough on impact and that we don't make enough big bets.

So if you think about a hundred and change, it responds to that critique in several ways.

First of all, it is a big bet.

Cecilia, I'm going to have to stop you there. A hundred million dollars is more than a big bet.

It's a huge bet. It is. And part of the idea about it is that there are some problems that we believe are

solvable if you focus attention and resources over a compressed period of time.

So how will this huge bet work?

Well, the MacArthur Foundation has already whittled down the competition of nearly 2,000 applicants

to just eight semi-finalists. A large panel of experts is now applying

...