NFL Head Health Initiative/ Challenge

General Electric, the National Football League, Under Armour and NIST have teamed up to create the Head Health Challenge to fund concussion research and treatment along with products that can help prevent concussions.

This challenge allows companies to bring forth their ideas to the NFL in hopes of receiving a four-year research fund of up to $20 million.

So far, there have been three challenges.

For the first challenge, the six final winners were awarded a total of $800,000. Among those winners was a company developing a blood test to quickly detect the presence of a concussion. Another was a company that was creating a neuroimaging handheld device. And three other winners were higher education schools needing funding for concussion-related studies they were conducting.

For the second challenge, the three final winners included a company creating a rate-dependent strap to reduce the risk of the head snapping backward; a company developing an impact-absorbent turf; and a university developing an impact-absorbent helmet.

Since being announced a finalist in 2015, this VICIS impact-absorbent helmet was the top-ranked helmet in the 2017 and 2018 NFL helmet performance, testing out more than 30 different helmets. Just for last season, 60 players in the NFL used the Zero1. Among those 60 were Alex Smith, Russell Wilson and Alfred Morris.

For the third challenge, Dynamic Research won the grand prize winner in September 2017. This company is creating a 6D single-impact suspension for the helmet. It is a multi-layer liner that allows the outer layer of the helmet to move independently to reduce the effect of impact forces from all directions.