XPRIZE Visioneers 2016 Summit Declares Deloitte's Conquering Cancer XPRIZE 'Ready to Launch'

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Saving millions of lives globally from cancer is one step closer to a reality as Deloitte's Conquering Cancer XPRIZE, co-led by Deloitte health leaders and pediatric oncologist Dr. Daniel Kraft, is now officially "ready to launch." This weekend XPRIZE convened nine international teams to share their Impact Design Proposals across a portfolio of Grand Challenge areas at the Visioneers 2016 Summit.

A group of 250 mentors, composed of prominent corporate and political leaders, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, artists, technologists and scientists, evaluated and critiqued nine XPRIZE proposals at the summit.

The Deloitte team's success means that it can now pursue the creation of an XPRIZE, incenting the development of an early diagnosis cancer screening tool – similar to a pregnancy test – to detect cancer early for everyone, everywhere. The other two ready-to-launch prizes address ALS and avatars.

The Conquering Cancer XPRIZE design approach
"The team's prize design is based on a 'Match.com'-type platform to connect the ecosystem of researchers, managed care organizations, survivors, patients and physicians with nontraditional ones such as the consumer products industry, inventors and garage tinkerers," said Beth Meagher, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and a Conquering Cancer XPRIZE team leader. "The platform can drive collaboration and break down silos as well as provide access to resources for rapid prototyping and aligns incentives with a substantial purse for the winning XPRIZE team."

"This XPRIZE will catalyze the crowd from expected and unexpected places," said Kraft. "From biotechnologists to DIY makers, data scientists and engineers can come together and collaborate while leveraging new technologies, systems, and mindsets to develop novel ways of detecting cancers rapidly, at low-cost, for everyone on the planet, from Tennessee to Tanzania."

The ultimate goal – an early detection solution
"Today, we have 21^st century cancer treatments with 20^th century cancer detection," said Juergen Klenk, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and a Conquering Cancer XPRIZE team leader. "Imagine the reduction in deaths and suffering if everyone, everywhere had access to 21^st century cancer detection – that's how we can conquer cancer. The XPRIZE Visioneers 2016 Summit galvanized a diverse and creative team and we are proud of what we've accomplished so far."

"The magic of our approach is the bringing together some of the best minds in cancer detection with citizen scientists, ethnographers, and anyone from any background with a talent willing to make a contribution – and a difference," said Asif Dhar, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and a Conquering Cancer XPRIZE team leader. "We would expect participants of our challenge to use exponential technologies that are ready and available – such as nanoscience, genomics, to artificial intelligence to smartphones and beyond." 

The team's next steps
"Being deemed 'ready to launch' at the Visioneers 2016 Summit demonstrated the validity of the concept, the global need for early cancer detection, and broad support of the XPRIZE community for our execution of the Conquering Cancer XPRIZE," said Mitch Morris, MD, Vice Chair and Global Leader for Deloitte's Health Care Sector, and a Conquering Cancer XPRIZE team leader. "And our effort builds on the momentum that began with the announcement of the Cancer XPRIZE during the White House Cancer Moonshot Summit."

The Conquering Cancer XPRIZE was featured as an initiative by the White House in its "Cancer Moonshot Fact Sheet."

More about the team
The Conquering Cancer XPRIZE team is one of nine teams hand-selected to present a concept for an XPRIZE competition at the Visioneers 2016 Summit. The diverse team includes passionate scientists, graphic designers, musicians, mathematicians, cancer survivors and physicians. This team has worked tirelessly over the past six months to create an XPRIZE challenge to detect cancer early to significantly reduce preventable cancer deaths and human suffering, for everyone and everywhere.

Photos and more information about the Conquering Cancer XPRIZE available here.

About Deloitte Consulting LLP
Deloitte helps organizations grow their businesses and enhance value by identifying actionable insights. More than 23,000 professionals provide a broad range of capabilities across human capital, strategy and operations, innovation and technology that are aligned to the particular needs of specific sectors, businesses and organizations. Deloitte provides clients with leading business insights that can help generate a tangible and measurable impact.

About XPRIZE
XPRIZE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world's grandest challenges. XPRIZE utilizes a unique combination of gamification, crowd-sourcing, incentive prize theory, and exponential technologies as a formula to make 10x (vs. 10%) impact in the grand challenge domains facing our world. XPRIZE's philosophy is that—under the right circumstances— igniting rapid experimentation from a variety of diverse lenses is the most efficient and effective method to driving exponential impact and solutions to grand challenges.  Active competitions include the $30M Google Lunar XPRIZE, the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, the $10M Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, the $7M Adult Literacy XPRIZE, the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE and the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. For more information, visit www.xprize.org.

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP and its subsidiaries. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

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