Teams have been preregistered for the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize — a handheld medical scanner competition backed by the Qualcomm Foundation — for nearly a year. In fact, 255 teams were reported as preregistered last year. But representatives of the $10 million prize have now announced the 34 teams that have completed the full registration and paid $5,000 to $10,000 entry fees (depending on the timing of their registration.) This is the first time the prize has publicly disclosed all the participants.
“We’re in what now is called the qualifying round,” Dr. Erik Viirre, the technical and medical director of the prize, told MobiHealthNews. ”So this is a process where, in the spring, a website will be opened where teams will be submitting documentation of [their entries]. We will have a series of expert judge panels review this documentation and rank them. The top ranked teams will be invited to then participate in the finals of the competition, in the winter of 2014.”
The first in-person event will be next week, when teams will meet up to give formal presentations, assess the competition, and possibly discuss partnerships if teams have complementary strengths and weaknesses. X Prize officials will also go over the minutiae of the competition guidelines with the teams. The event will not be open to the public or the media.
The only Indian entrant in the competition, Danvantri seems to offer a wide range of products, but the area most likely to form the basis of their Tricorder entry is its B.O.L.T system, which the company describes like this: “B.O.L.T is a unique system in which NiBP (Non-invasive Blood pressure), Pulse Oximeter and temperature are combined into a small form factor device which gets controlled from a mobile device. B.O.L.T supports Android and iOS phones and tablets and also desktop users. Patient can check the vitals at home and pay the Hospital/Doctor through EHR login for the consultation which will be integrated with the Hospital HIS.”