Visualant Enters $10M Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize Competition

Chromatic-based identification and diagnostic solutions provider Visualant Inc. has entered into the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, a global competition to revolutionize health care.

Sponsored by Qualcomm Foundation, the Tricorder X Prize is a 3.5-year competition to stimulate the development of devices that will provide consumers with health care in the palm of their hand. In the contest, teams will leverage technology innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and wireless sensing — much like the medical Tricorder of Star Trek fame — to make medical diagnoses independent of a physician or health care provider.

According to the competition requirements, the submitted device must be able to continuously monitor five vital signs and assess a set of 16 distinct conditions in a pool of people within three days, and it must weigh no more than 5 lb.

Professor Tom Furness, chair of Visualant’s scientific advisory board, will lead a team of students and researchers applying the company’s ChromaID technology to health-sensing opportunities. The device collects light patterns using a panel of LEDs to identify, detect and diagnose markers invisible to the human eye. The company recently won a Prism Award for the technology (See: Prism Awards Honor Innovations in Photonics).

“The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize provides a great catalyst for our research team to apply our ChromaID technology to enhance mobile health care devices,” said Visualant President and CEO Ron Erickson. “We are also excited about the potential to collaborate with other teams through the framework provided by the X Prize organization.”

Three winners will be chosen in 2015. The first-place team will receive $7 million; the second-place team, $2 million; and the third-place team, $1 million.

Last month, Open Photonics Inc. announced that it has partnered with X Prize to match photonics researchers with teams competing for the prize (See: Open Photonics Joins Tricorder X Prize).

For more information, visit: www.visualant.net or www.qualcommtricorderxprize.org