They were both entered into the DARPA Grand Challenge - a race for autonomous vehicles.

BBC: Cutting traffic with driverless cars

He eventually found his way to Stanford, leading the university team's entry in the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) Grand Challenge to create an autonomous vehicle that could navigate 132 miles through a desert.

WSJ: The Weekend Interview With Sebastian Thrun: What's Next for Silicon Valley?

DARPA, after all, is the ultra-forward-thinking Pentagon agency that hosted the Grand Challenge in 2006 and 2007, an autonomous car race across the Mojave desert, as well as the Urban Challenge, a 2008 event that challenged self-driving cars to negotiate a cityscape complete with obstacles and traffic.

FORBES: Connect