DARPA announced today that cash prizes will be awarded to the top three qualifying finishers, 1st place will be awarded $2 million, 2nd prize is $1 million and 3rd prize is $500,000.

 For more information, see official DARPA announcement

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/docs/prize.pdf

At Austin Robot Technology we believe this incentive is important to keep Track B teams (those that are not funded by DARPA) interested and focused.