Tuesday, July 28, 2020
XPRIZE Launches Rapid Covid Testing Competition
Los Angeles-based XPRIZE, the organization which creates competitions to help encourage the advancement of technology to solve some of the world's biggest challenges, says it has launched a new prize, aimed at the rapid testing issue with COVID-19. According to the nonprofit, it has launched a new $5 Million XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing Competition, which challenges the global community to develop frequent, fast-turnaround, cheap, and easy-to-use screening tests to catch COVID-19 occurrences before they become outbreaks. XPRIZE says the competition challenges teams to develop new, low-cost testing solutions that range from testing devices with 15-minute results to distributed lab testing methods with "next morning" results. In particular, the company said that current, available COVID-19 tests are "expensive, slow, invasive, and supply-chain limited". XPRIE says it says a better test is needed to scale testing capabilities by 100-times past our current standard, the level of increase needed to more safely return to everyday activities.