VOA常速英语:Two Teams Win Big Money by Making Science Fiction Device into Reality

“I’m still in shock, still don’t believe it. It’s really been a wild family reunion every weekend, nights and weekends of putting this together over the last five years.”

Emergency room doctor Basil Harris and his team of family members who range in expertise from computer science to medicine and health policy along with their friends won 2.6 million dollars for developing this mobile medical diagnostic device inspired by the tricorder on the science fiction television and movie series, star trek.

“When I got involved in the competition, it’s a crazy idea build a ‘tricorder’ so who’s going to listen to you but your own family?”

The device named DxtER includes a collection of non-invasive sensors that collect data about a person’s vital signs, body chemistry and biological functions, and are able to diagnose numerous illnesses.

Harris’s team is not the only one that received the big price money. This team with members from Taiwan, China and U.S., received $1 million for developing this device called DeepQ.Inspired by the traditional Chinese medicine’s method of “observe, listen, inquire and feel,” this device can also diagnose numerous diseases.It includes the ability to monitor a person’s vital signs, has a blood urine test kit, and two camera lenses to allow the device to “see,” along with a smart phone and application.

“There’s a mission we want to achieve.That mission is to bring quality health care to everyone, to people maybe in China in rural village. They don’t have the resource, so we need money to further develop our system to make it better. We plan to make the system at least five times better than this one.”

“I think the fundamental problem that exists that we wanted to address is that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who have no access to modern health care, and these people exist in remote places of the world.They exist right here in the United States in the rural areas. We just don’t have enough doctors.We don’t have enough nurses.And we certainly don’t have enough infrastructures.So the one primary solution is technology. ”

“This is the type of device that can help level the playing field across the board，from remote villages to urban centers to refugee camps, this stuff can be deployed and really, really make a difference.”

The team from Taiwan hopes to work with the Chinese government to bring its device to selected villages in a couple of years.In the U.S., these devices need to go through a rigorous approval process by the Food and Drug Administration.It is a process Harris says could take five to seven years, before consumers on a wide scale can purchase this type of device for around $200.

VOA news Los Angeles.