Who Is Vying to Win the $10 Million Medical Tricorder Contest

In the future, a Star Trek-style tricorder may become reality. For a $10 million X-Prize award, 34 teams of engineers and researchers are working to develop viable medical tricorders.Under the terms of the Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize, competing devices must diagnose 15 health conditions as well as a board of certified physicians.While more than 300 teams applied for the X-Prize contest, only 34 participants have made it to the latest stage. Teams hail from countries like the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Poland, India, Canada, the United Kingdom and Greece. The full list is available on on the contest's website.The majority of participating teams comprise students, but a few contest participants come from small startup companies. For example, Final Frontier Medical Devices and Nanobiosym are two company-led research teams participating in the contest.As of now, Scanadu is one of the leading favorites with the public. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, development of the development of of the Scanadu tricorder moved along at a rapid pace. For the most part, other teams don't have working prototypes to demonstrate as of now.Qualifying rounds are slated to take place in April of 2014. At that time, tricorder projects will be presented to a panel of judges. From that round, up to 10 teams will advance to a final round. During the final round, devices will be evaluated by a consumer panel.