By Diagnostics World Staff
April 13, 2017 | The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE announced winners at a ceremony yesterday. Final Frontier Medical Devices and Dynamical Biomarkers Group were both named winners.
Final Frontier Medical Devices, a Pennsylvania-based team led by brothers Dr. Basil Harris, an emergency medicine physician, and George Harris, a network engineer, took home the 1st place, receiving $2.6M for their artificial intelligence-based engine, DxtER, that learns to diagnose medical conditions by integrating learnings from clinical emergency medicine with data analysis from actual patients. DxtER includes a group of non-invasive sensors that are designed to collect data about vital signs, body chemistry and biological functions. This information is then synthesized in the device’s diagnostic engine to make a quick and accurate assessment.
A second-place prize of $1 million was granted to Taiwan-based finalist, Dynamical Biomarkers Group, led by Harvard Medical School Associate Professor Chung-Kang Peng, Ph.D. and supported by HTC Research for their prototype, which pairs diagnostic algorithms with analytical methodology in a user-friendly device, all controlled through a smartphone.
Both teams exceeded the competition requirements for user experience, nearly met the challenging audacious benchmarks for diagnosing the 13 disease states, and with their prototypes, have taken humanity one step closer to realizing Gene Roddenberry’s 23rd century sci-fi vision.
In celebration of efforts that inspire others to take risks and strive for “moonshots”, even if ultimately they do not win the XPRIZE, team Cloud DX was also recognized as XPRIZE’s first Bold Epic Innovator receiving $100,000, sponsored by Qualcomm Foundation.
Seven finalist teams competed in the Qualification Round for the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, the global competition to revolutionize digital healthcare. These teams were required to submit final working prototypes for the extended Final Round in Q3 2016, and were eligible to win Milestone Achievement Awards for performance in Lab Test Sessions and Human Test Sessions. Milestone Achievement Awards were granted to Danvantri (India); DMI (US); and Intelesens-Scanadu (UK).