 The Blue Planet, our home, named for the unique abundance of water that covers 70% of its surface. Without it, life on Earth wouldn't exist. Despite being surrounded by vast amounts of water, only a half a percent of it is readily available for human use. Much of Earth's fresh water is above us in the atmosphere, locked away in ice caps, located in hard-to-reach areas, and the water sources we do have are facing rising pollution. This leaves us with the challenging task of supporting a global population of 8 billion people using this limited and precious resource. Every one of us needs around 100 litres, more than 26 gallons, of water per day for uses that include hygiene, drinking, cooking and agriculture. This allows us to maintain our health, the health of our communities and that of our planet. However, half the global population already lives with the reality of water scarcity, having to forego some of these essential uses on any given day. Nearly 80% of the world's population finds reliable water access in danger. We find these issues in remote and metropolitan areas alike, with many major cities around the world, including Beijing, Cape Town, London, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sao Paulo, rapidly approaching day zero. The day when water supplies dip so low that central water supplies need to be turned off and residents' access to water will need to be heavily restricted and rationed. With so many people on the planet experiencing some form of water stress, time is of the essence to find a solution for us all. That's why we're launching X-Prize Water Scarcity, a $119 million five-year global competition made possible by the Mohammed bin Zayed water initiative. X-Prize Water Scarcity will revolutionize the desalination industry with the goal of creating reliable, affordable and sustainable solutions to increase access to clean water around the world and help communities thrive. Oceans hold 96% of Earth's water as salt water. X-Prize Water Scarcity will bring together the planet's brightest minds to develop breakthrough technologies to reimagine seawater desalination and make the Earth's oceans a reliable source of freshwater. The competition will challenge teams to tackle the obstacles and issues associated with existing desalination technologies, including harmful environmental impacts, high energy consumption, reliability in our changing climate and steep financial costs. This is our watershed moment. Together, we can harness technology and the power of an invested global community to help provide universal access to safe water, overcome water scarcity, enable agriculture and industry to thrive and enhance the well-being of everyone on our magnificent blue planet. To learn more or to register as a team, head to XPrize.org slash water.