Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project

The second edition of the Vodafone Wireless Innovation Project™ is accepting proposals from Today thru February 1, 2010.

This contest seeks to identify and fund (up to 600 k USD) the best innovations using wireless related technology to address critical social issues around the world. Project proposals must demonstrate significant advancement in the field of wireless-related technology applied to social benefit use.

The competition is open to projects from universities and nonprofit organizations based in the United States, despite projects may operate and help people overseas.

The video above shows one of the awardees of the past edition, a group at the EE Department in UCLA, lead by Prof. Aydogan Ozcan. They have devised a simple wireless microscope system that allows the remote analysis of blood sample images, captured in the field with a mobile phone equipped with inexpensive optics. The images are then transmitted wireless to a center for rapid counting/processing and the result comes back as a text message.

More information available here