And the winner is… quite possibly, humankind. XPRIZE and the Qualcomm Foundation, during a ceremony held last night in Hollywood, announced that the Final Frontier Medical Devices team won the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE Competition. Final Frontier, which hails from Philadelphia and was led by emergency room medic Dr. Basil Harris and his brother, Geroge Harris, a network engineer, accepted the $2.6 million top prize.
The not-for-profit organization XPRIZE Foundation and communications giant Qualcomm launched the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE Competition in 2012, challenging anyone or any team to develop a practical, lightweight, mobile, real-world version of Star Trek’s fictional Tricorder that everyday people could use at home, without the presence of a doctor or health care provider, to evaluate health issues.
The evening began with Robert Picardo reprising the Doctor’s famous phrase from Star Trek: Voyager: “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” which proved quite fitting for the event. Picardo then introduced Peter Diamandis, the founder of XPRIZE, who called the ceremony “the culmination of five years of work” that began at CES 2012, when the competition was announced. Diamandis related that April 12 is a momentous date, the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight. The first space shuttle launch took place on April 12 in 1981. “And,” he noted, “today we add another with Tricorder XPRIZE.”
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