Los Angeles (August 6, 2013) – XPRIZE and Nokia today announced the 12 finalist teams for the first competition in the $2.25 million Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, two separate and consecutive competitions to advance innovative sensing technologies that capture meaningful data about a consumer’s health and surrounding environment. The advancements in sensing technology resulting from this competition will help lay the foundation for a mobile health revolution that transforms healthcare into a system that is highly personalized, instantly accessible and relevant to the medical needs of each individual.
The following are the 12 teams advancing to the Final Round. More information about each team can be found HERE.
- ABUS-urodynamics (Asahikawa, Japan), an urodynamic study instrumentation group in the urologic surgery department of Asahikawa Medical University.
- apollo (Pittsburgh, Penn.), focused on developing the world’s smallest spectrometer-on-a-chip to detect personal vital and health signals non-invasively.
- Elfi-Tech (Rehovot, Israel), founded in 2006 to develop technology in the field of non-invasive monitoring of physiological parameters.
- Holomic (Los Angeles, Calif.), a team of experts in the medical device industry with specific expertise in creating photonics-based technologies for mobile health applications.
- i-calQ (Salt Lake City, Utah), creating the world’s first smart phone-based quantitative point-of-care integrated diagnostic solution.
- InSilixa (Sunnyvale, Calif.), a multidisciplinary, highly technical group focused on developing a hand-held, fully-integrated point-of-care DNA-based diagnostic tool.
- MoboSens (Urbana, Ill.), comprised of professors, scientists, engineers and graduate students from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
- Nanobiosym Health RADAR (Cambridge, Mass.), an advanced nanotech incubator and research institute.
- Owlstone (Cambridge, UK), a pioneer in the commercialization of state-of-the-art chemical detection systems.
- Programmable-Bio-Nano-Chip (Houston, Texas), a medical microdevice research group from Rice University committed to improving the speed, accuracy and affordability of disease diagnosis.
- QUASAR (San Diego, Calif.), a world leader in noninvasive biosensing systems.
- Silicon BioDevices (Palo Alto, Calif.) a point-of-care diagnostics startup company formed to commercialize a novel sensor technology.
“We are extremely pleased with the impressive array of new technologies demonstrated by all of the teams in the competition, and our selected finalists represent the most promising and innovative submissions as determined by our expert judging panel,” said Mark Winter, Senior Director, Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE. “Our teams are using new medical evidence and a variety of technologies to create sensor solutions that either didn’t exist previously or were only available as laboratory devices. Their significant and important improvements in sensors and sensing technologies could empower people to take a more proactive approach to managing their health by giving them convenient access to real-time personal health data.”
During the Qualifying Round, teams were required to submit an entry that addressed several parameters, most importantly, the ability to present a solution that will accurately, reliably and effectively collect meaningful data that can be used for identification or diagnosis of a disease, medical condition or pattern of health. The judging panel reviewed 26 team submissions from seven countries and selected the 12 most credible entries in the areas of accuracy, technical innovation, ease-of-use, originality, portability, relevance to public health needs, integration into other soft/hardware, and multi-functionality.
“While there has been an influx of market activity around health and fitness applications, medical diagnostic and sensing technologies for consumers remains scarce,” said Henry Tirri, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President, Nokia. “Through this competition and the selection of the finalist teams, we’re eager to see the developments in consumer-focused applications and technologies that will potentially transform the way healthcare is delivered across the globe on multiple levels including monitoring, prevention, diagnosis, and disease management.”
Teams are competing for a prize purse that includes a $525,000 Grand Prize and up to five Distinguished Awards, each valued at $120,000. The winners will be the teams who demonstrate the highest merit in the areas of accuracy and consistency, demonstration quality, technical innovation, human factors, market opportunity, originality, and user experience. The final judging and awards ceremony will take place at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in Silicon Valley on October 2.
For more information about the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE, visit: nokiasensingxchallenge.org.
About XPRIZE
Founded in 1995, XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the leading organization solving the world’s Grand Challenges by creating and managing large-scale, high-profile, incentivized prize competitions that stimulate investment in research and development worth far more than the prize itself. The organization motivates and inspires brilliant innovators from all disciplines to leverage their intellectual and financial capital for the benefit of humanity. XPRIZE conducts competitions in five Prize Groups: Education; Exploration; Energy & Environment; Global Development; and Life Sciences. Active prizes include the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $10 million Archon Genomics XPRIZE presented by Express Scripts, the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, and the $2.25 million Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE. For more information, go to www.xprize.org.
About Nokia
Nokia is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an integral part of the lives of people around the world. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people use their Nokia to capture and share experiences, access information, find their way or simply to speak to one another. Nokia’s technological and design innovations have made its brand one of the most recognized in the world. For more information, visit http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia.
