Mindful Scientific, the Halifax company whose portable device can detect head trauma instantly, has been selected as one of six North American finalists in the IBM Global Entrepreneur Competition.

CEO Ying Tam said Monday the company will participate in the IBM North America Regional SmartCamp, to be held in Silicon Valley from Sept. 17 to 19.  

“It certainly validates where we’re going in terms of market opportunity and the size of market,” he said in an interview.

Mindful Scientific has been developing the Halifax Consciousness Scanner, or HCS, as a comfortable, attractive device that can be slipped on a person’s head. It sends signals to a mobile device that can show whether they have suffered brain trauma, such as a concussion.

The scanner has received considerable attention in the past two years because of the growing concerns about concussions in sports. Without being moved, athletes showing signs of head trauma can slip on the HCS and coaches or medical personnel will immediately know whether they have suffered a concussion or other malady.

Earlier this year, Mindful Scientific was chosen to participate in the first cohort of the Canadian Technology Accelerator at Boston, and about three months ago entered the New England regional event for the IBM Global Entrepreneur. Tam won the event, and proceeded to the North American competition.

What he learned is that this was a completely new competition process, so Mindful Scientific was competing with a range of companies from across the continent. And once again it was successful.

The SmartCamp in Northern California will include a Q&A session with such leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms as Garage Technology Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Trinity Ventures. It also features a full day of mentoring workshops, and wraps up with the pitching session to the event’s judges. They will pick two winners, who will proceed to the global finals in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, Mindful Scientific is working on a series of clinical studies to help validate the effectiveness of the Halifax Consciousness Scanner in diagnosing brain trauma. Tam said the company now has five studies on the go, and recently began a study of adolescent head trauma. It is working with Citadel High School in Halifax and the Cole Harbour Wolfpack hockey team on this study.

Tam has been working on a round of funding for several months and this work continues. He has pitched to the full membership of two angel groups in Boston and to the screening committee of two other groups.

“In the first two, we’ve got some interest,” he said. “And certainly the IBM competition is obviously good validation that we’re on the right track.”