The NFL today unveiled the next round of winners in its Head Health Challenge, an initiative of the league, GE and Under Armour that will give $20M to entities working to develop concussion prevention, treatment and diagnostic technologies. There are seven winners in the latest round, most of them university research arms. Each will get $500,000 and an opportunity to earn another $1M apiece. Included among the winners are the Univ. of Washington and startup VICIS, Inc., which are developing a new helmet. “The helmet boasts a novel impact absorbing structure that mitigates forces likely to cause concussion,” said a description of the helmet in a press release. The six other winners are the Univ. of New Hampshire, which will evaluate helmetless tackling as a training method; Viconic Sporting Inc., which is developing safer synthetic playing surfaces; the Univ. of Miami and Univ. of Pittsburgh, which are developing a goggle that measures precise eye movements and can be used to detect mild traumatic brain injury; UCLA and Architected Materials, which are developing a material in helmets that can absorb energy; Emory Univ. and Georgia Tech, which are developing a portable concussion detection device to be used on sidelines; and the Army Research Laboratory, which is developing tethers that attach the head to the torso and would restrict head movement if the head is snapped forward or back. The seven winners were selected from 500 proposals. The NFL, GE and Under Armour announced in '13 a $60M plan to invest in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of concussions. GE and the NFL committed to spend $40M to evaluate and develop next-generation imaging technologies for patients with mild traumatic brain injury. Then the three companies agreed to spend $20M in grants on promising technologies. The league in January announced the first 16 winners, each of which was awarded $300,000. With that round and this, the challenge will have official granted $8.3M.
