Wireless has revolutionized the world, and now it’s going to take a shot at saving it. Verizon is launching a $10 million competition to find enlightened solutions to formidable global challenges. Called the Powerful Answers Award, it will be a yearlong challenge to top thinkers in technology to develop cloud-based, wireless or even wireline solutions for issues in education, healthcare and sustainability.

Announced by Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam during his Tuesday night keynote speech, it establishes something of CES philanthropy, coming on the heels of Qualcomm’s $10 million Tricorder X Prize healthcare contest, announced last year.

McAdam made clear that if wireless has been very good to Verizon, the company has done its part in developing the transformative technology. “The cloud is the third wave of the digital revolution. Now the question is, what are we going to do with it?” McAdam asked, setting up a promo clip that featured first responders, families dealing with health and aging issues, teachers and students.

He then segued into an entertainment discussion, detailing a vision in which Verizon will create tools to “take things to a new level.” Through the company’s deal with home video purveyor Redbox to create a new service called Redbox Instant, “We’re expanding to put all our video in the cloud, have it translatable to any language and viewable on any network.”

McAdam said the company is also creating a FiOS search engine that coupled with the above will create a global video jukebox. “It will let you search any program and watch it on any platform. To do that today, you’d have to create a separate channel for every broadcaster. With LTE, we’re going to be able to take everybody and stream it on the same channel at the same time. This will create new opportunities in sports, music and entertainment.”

Joining McAdam to talk about opportunities in sports was NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who discussed how Verizon technology has created expansion opportunities for the sport by allowing teams to bypass broadcast partners to show in different regions, like England, where the NFL has pacted to show two games this year. It has also enhanced viewership and participation for fans, letting them watch games on phones and see different camera angles on the field.(Concurrent with the Verizon presentation, T-Mobile announced a multimillion dollar deal to become “the official wireless sponsor of Major League Baseball.”)

McAdam also touched on retail and automotive applications as being key categories in the expansion and development of wireless as a lifestyle enhancer. He capped his presentation announcing the Powerful Answers competition. Submissions will be judged by a panel of Verizon executives, members of academia, the media and the venture capital community. U.S.-based companies, entrepreneurs and individuals will be eligible to compete.  The winners will be announced at the CES next year.

Verizon is in South Hall this week, booth #31400. McAdam’s keynote video is available on the Verizon CES site.