The XPrize Foundation has announced a partnership with Nokia on a new innovation challenge to complement the ambitious quest to build the tricorder.

The objective of the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE is to stimulate the development of the next generation of health sensors and sensing technologies.

The challenge will be held as a series of three separate stages between May 2012-October 2014 and will include $2.25 million worth of rewards for the winners.

This challenge is truly an intended extension and complement to the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize competition launched last year in an effort to stimulate innovation around developing handheld, personalized diagnostic technology capable of accurately assessing and diagnosing a patients condition within 80-percent accuracy.

“Partnering with Nokia is a natural fit for this competition. Health sensing technologies enabled by artificial intelligence, lab-on-a-chip, and digital imaging are advancing exponentially and will ultimately integrate with your phone. We need to expand sensor and sensing technology beyond disease management to areas such as public health and fitness,” said Dr. Diamandis.

“The Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE will bring about radical innovation in health sensors and sensing technologies, which paves the way for better choices in when, where, and how individuals receive care. Ultimately, healthcare will be more convenient, affordable, and accessible to consumers worldwide through these integrated digital health solutions.”

Areas of specific interest listed on the challenge website include;

Technology:

  • Sensing mode: Driving advances in technology such as micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), imaging and microfluidic and nanofluidic lab-on-a-chip can lead the way to new forms of chemical, optical, thermal, electrical, biological, and genomic sensing and analysis available anytime, anywhere.
  • Cost and size: Pushing advances in electronics and computing can make many forms of sensing more widely accessible to individuals in their home, work and living spaces.
  • Interlinking: Driving sensors to interface more with other devices as well as the cloud, enabling both convenience and ubiquitous real-time sensing. This is also key to integrating health data with consumer social networks, another powerful dimension that can be deployed to improve health and well-being through peer support.
  • Resource scarcity: Improving the computing, communications and energy resources of sensors and sensing solutions.
  • Computing and machine learning algorithms: Pushing the development of sophisticated algorithms that can enable complex conditions—such as depression or addiction—to be inferred from sensor information

Trustworthiness:

  • Extending end-to-end system reliability and quality of data and data delivery, both in terms of sensor and network functionality as well as user actions.

Privacy and Security:

  • Proactively addressing data privacy, both in terms of how information is being gathered and evaluated, and by whom and when.

Regulations, standardization and interoperability:

  • Establishing a forum and dialogue for convening industry standards to address these issues.