The Army has joined with the University of California San Diego and several other area organizations to search for new wireless health devices that can be used by soldiers.
The Wireless Health Innovation Challenge is open to faculty members and graduate students in Southern California. Other sponsors are Qualcomm and the Wireless Life Science Alliance.
As many as four winning projects will each receive as much as $75,000 each to move their projects forward.
Up to 15 applicants will be invited to participate in the final round of competition. Along the way, they will receive help from technology and business advisers at the UCSD von Liebig Center with analyzing the commercial potential of their inventions, creating a development plan and putting together a final presentation for the contest.
Sponsors of the contest said the Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, based at Fort Detrick, Md., is interested in fostering the development of new wireless health technologies that can be used in the battlefield, in disaster zones, during humanitarian relief efforts or back home to assist veterans.
They offered several examples of such devices, including personal wireless networks that can connect with several devices within a proximity and cell phones made of flexible material that can be worn against the body rather than carried in a pocket.
Keith Darcé
Signon San Diego