The US Defence Department has offered a million dollars for any inventor that can come up with a lightweight wearable power supply.

According to Network World, the DoD wants to cut down on the weight that a typical soldier going out for a four-day mission has to carry. It claimed a soldier is having to carry 40 pounds of batteries and rechargers in his pack. The US military use battery packs to run their radios, night-vision devices, global positioning systems and other combat gear.

They want to get this down to about eight pounds and the DoD is looking to mimic the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency which has experienced successes using contests to attract competitors.

The competition is open to everyone, but the lead developer on the project must be American. So, I guess that means that the rest of your work team can be cheap chinese labor if you want.