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2019 BC Regenerative Medicine Hackathon Kickoff

September 12, 2019 - 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

BCRegMed and the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Victoria are proud to host the 2nd annual health and regenerative medicine themed Hackathon! After a very successful first Hackathon at UVic last year, we are making this year even bigger! With a cross-campus Hackathon happening between UVic and UBC!

Hackathons are focused events which bring together interdisciplinary teams to develop innovative solutions to front-line healthcare problems. We are currently looking for challenges to be solved by our hackers at this exciting event. The challenges will be drawn from health-related needs in the local community and health care facilities and local teams of hackers will develop innovative solutions to these challenges.

What is a Hackathon? :

A ‘traditional’ hackathon is an event where programmers get together for a short period of time to collaborate on a project. Typically, participants have 24-48 hours to consecutively work on the challenge with the goal of delivering a completed product/project at the end of that time period.

What makes a Health Hackathon unique? :

There are several properties of a Health Hackathon that differentiate it from a more traditional hackathon:

  • The health industry is largely multidisciplinary so it stands to reason that competing teams should be as well. Participants come from a variety of backgrounds including engineering, science, business, nursing and medicine.
  • As health related projects are often large in scope with many complex components, the Health Hackathon lets teams work on their challenges for 3 weeks leading up to the 24 hour hacking session.
  • At the end of the Hackathon, the goal is to have tangible solution that could potentially be implemented in industry. One way to promote this is to have a team of mentors to answer questions and provide insights to the competing teams.

Event Format: Hackers, mentors, and judges will be recruited over the summer to participate in our event.
September 6th is the kick-off at the University of Victoria, ECS660, from 6pm to 8pm.
September 12th we’ll be kicking things off at UBC at the Biomedical Research Centre, Room 351.
During the Kickoff,  we will present the challenges to the hackers and facilitate team formation. The teams will have until the hacking weekend to think about their approach to challenges. During this period, we will have a team of mentors who will answer questions about the challenges during that time. The Hackathon itself will take place October 4th-6th (Fort Tectoria, UVIC ; Life Sciences Institute, UBC) with the solutions being judged on Sunday, and an awards ceremony to follow.

Call for Challenges: We are seeking a diverse array of health related challenges that can be addressed by groups of hackers in a one month time period as part of our Hackathon! These challenges can addressed through a variety of engineering disciplines, including biomedical, electrical, mechanical, and software engineering. See below for the event time line. Preference will be given to projects with strong in-kind support through either mentorship or donation of supplies or resources. The challenges should be no longer than 750 words in length.

Last year’s challenges

Challenge #1 Novel sieving device for separating microspheres
Challenge #2 Non-agitating device for patients living with dementia
Challenge #3 Developing terminal devices for prostheses
Challenge #4 Forensic Nurse Examination Program (Paging system)
Challenge #5 Real-time Fall Prediction & Prevention in Hospitalized Patients

Deadline for challenge submission: July 31st, 2019.

Details

Date:
September 12, 2019
Time:
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Website:
https://bcregmed.ca/symposium/2019-2/hackathon/

Organizer

BCREGMED