Today we’re excited to announce another groundbreaking competition in our Life Sciences Prize Group: The $2.25 million Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE.

There are so many rapid advances in health technology today, it’s hard to keep up with the dizzying pace. We are living during an age where small teams are empowered exponentially to develop growing technologies that can solve problems that were once only solvable by governments and large corporations. And yet many frustrating barriers remain in the way of all this progress.

That’s where the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE fits in. 

The glaring inefficiencies and high costs of the U.S. healthcare system (and healthcare systems around the globe) have been pressing issues for many years.  In the U.S., the total spent annually on the healthcare system is more than $2 trillion, which accounts for more than 15% of the nation’s gross domestic product.  Health sensors have the capacity to ease this economic burden.  A number of social and medical trends could be managed better with new technologies, including obesity, chronic diseases, and aging, among others.  

Our goal is to revolutionize health sensors and sensing technologies. Ultimately, it’s nothing less than revolutionizing healthcare.

This competition could not have been launched ten years ago; probably not even five years ago.  Today, technologies such as A.I., Wireless Sensing, Cloud Computing, Lab-On-A-Chip, and digital imaging are advancing exponentially. And now we need to expand sensor and sensing technology beyond disease management to areas like public health and fitness.  Giving consumers 24/7, real-time data about their health that they can access anytime and anywhere can change the way they think about – and improve – their own health. Because health happens every minute of every day, wherever you are, whether it’s convenient or not.

This competition is truly global; the team that wins this X CHALLENGE could come from anywhere in the world.  We are looking for best in class technology from multiple disciplines: medicine, mobile and sensor/sensing technology. To win, a team must show advancements in technology, privacy and security, standardization, system reliability, and applications.

And there’s another element to the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE that will make it interesting to watch unfold: It’s likely that the solutions developed as part of the competition may also be integrated into a team’s effort to win the recently announced $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, the competition to put healthcare in the palm of your hand. These two competitions will run on roughly parallel tracks over three years, with distinct but complementary goals.

I personally am looking forward to watching these technologies advance for the benefit of us all.