Metaculus is hosting the Li Wenliang prize series for contributions to the forecasting of the COVID-19 outbreak. The series is named after the Chinese ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital who was one of the first to warn about COVID-19 in the early days of its outbreak. The prize series combines a forecasting contest, awards for question writing and awards for other contributions, primarily those made through commenting. Note: Prize amounts will be paid out in in Amazon gift cards.

Li Wenliang Forecasting Tournament I

All questions in this tournament may be found here.

The first tournament will run from February 17th till the 17th of June. The prizes will be awarded to those with the highest number of points on the 17th of June (end of day). The prizes are as follows:

• $300 for first prize

• $250 for second prize

• $200 for third prize

• $100 for fourth prize

Li Wenliang Forecasting Tournament II

All questions in this tournament may be found here. The contest will be hosted on pandemic.metaculus.

The second tournament will run from March 1st till Jan 2, 2021. The prizes will be awarded to the users with the highest number of points on COVID-19 related questions on Jan 2nd, 2021 (end of day).

The prizes will be awarded to those with the highest number of points on the 2nd of Jan, 2021. The prizes are as follows:

• $350 for first prize

• $300 for second prize

• $250 for third prize

• $150 for fourth prize

Analyst awards (awarded)

Eligible contributions include standout public predictions, models, factorisations, comments that help improve questions, datasets, and links to relevant sources (see the link above for further details and examples).

• First prize: @ignorance.prior — $150
• Second prize: @AABoyles — $100
• Third prize: @Jgalt — $50

Question-developer awards (awarded)

Prizes will be awarded to users who develop the most valuable COVID-19-related questions.

Questions posted from February 17th till March 2nd 12PM GMT will be considered toward overall contributions.

• First prize: @AABoyles — $125
• Second prize (tie): @Jotto — $65
• Second price (tie): @Jgalt — $65
• Third prize: @Ninjaedit — $45

The judges for the Question-developer awards and the Analyst awards were @DanielFilan, @Sylvain, @PabloStafforini and @Tamay.

If you'd like to contribute funding to increasing the size of the prize pool please contact support@metaculus.com.

Terms and conditions

• The Contest is open to everybody except Contest judges
• Sponsors reserve the right to cancel or modify this Contest in the event that an insufficient number of entries are received that meet the minimum judging criteria.
• This Contest shall be construed in accordance with U.S. law. All Federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Winners are required to pay all applicable taxes on the prize and Metaculus assumes no liability for such taxes.
• Void where prohibited by law. Metaculus reserves the right to refuse to award any Prize if doing so violates any applicable laws.
• All decisions of the judges are final and the selection of Winners is at the sole and absolute discretion of Metaculus.