At 4:00 p.m. this afternoon: If you've got a half-cooked dream rattling around in your brain (think space elevator) that only lacks millions of dollars in funding to change the course of human history, get down to the University of Washington this afternoon for a talk with Peter Diamandis, the CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation. The organization throws millions of dollars at scientists and hobbyist inventors to realize their loftier goals—for instance, in 2004, the Foundation awarded $10 million to a company that launched the first private space flight.

Today's talk will focus on how healthy competition sparks corporate and government innovation. (University of Washington, Parrington Hall, Room 309, 4 p.m., free, RSVP required)