Would you like to help organize a Hacking Health event in your city? Please contact us.
English
Français

Hacking Health

Bringing tech innovation to healthcare

Améliorons les soins de santé. 

Hacking Health a été créé dans le but d’améliorer le secteur de la santé en réunissant des innovateurs en technologie et des experts de la santé. Ces derniers auront la chance de bâtir des solutions pratiques à des problèmes concrets de notre société. Cette initiative sera lancée avec un hackaton* à Montréal le 24 et 25 février 2012. En savoir plus
Hacking Health is designed to improve healthcare by pairing technological innovators with healthcare experts to build realistic, human-centric solutions to front-line healthcare problems.

Hackers: Work on meaningful problems. Help improve healthcare. Get connected, and practice your skills.

Health Professionals: Collaborate with tech experts to solve problems in healthcare. Let your ideas inspire practical solutions.

When? February 24-25th (see schedule )

Where? Thompson House, McGill University, Montréal ( map )

Register to Attend or Learn More

Hackers

Travaillez sur des problèmes importants. Aidez à améliorer les soins de santé. Devenez meilleur et rencontrez des gens passionnants.

Participer

Professionnels de la santé

Collaborez avec un expert en informatique pour résoudre des problèmes dans le domaine de la santé. Laissez vos idées inspirer de nouvelles solutions pratiques.

Participer
Can't attend? Sign up for the mailing list

Notre Motivation

Le secteur de la santé est un milieu critique se méritant l’attention de nos meilleurs experts en technologie. C’est un marché immense et important où il serait bon d’y construire une carrière.

Toutefois, la technologie, sans l’expertise et la crédibilité d’experts de la santé, ne peut changer le système. C’est pour cette raison qu’il faut lier les deux domaines: les programmeurs et designers doivent avoir des alliés sachant dans de complexes institutions humaines.

POURQUOI EST-CE NÉCESSAIRE?

La majorité des gens connaissant les problèmes de la santé n’ont pas le savoir-faire, le temps ou les connaissances adéquates pour implémenter des solutions techniques. D’un autre côté, très peu de designers et programmeurs ont le savoir médical et la crédibilité nécessaire pour innover dans le milieu de la santé. Malheureusement, cela coûte cher car les problèmes ne sont pas résolus et le progrès est stagnant. Nous devons donc aider les innovateurs en technologie en leur donnant le savoir et les connaissances nécessaires pour améliorer le domaine de la santé.

FONCTIONNEMENT

Ce 24 février 2012, des programmeurs et designers collaboreront avec des médecins, des infimières et des professionnels de la santé afin de créer rapidement des prototypes de solution qui seront testés dans des cliniques et des hôpitaux. Les objectifs sont les suivants :

1. À court terme, construire des logiciels améliorant immédiatement la santé en trouvant des solutions à des problèmes connus.

2. À long terme, créer des relations entre les développeurs et les experts de la santé.

Hacking Health est basé sur le modèle du “Hackaton”, un type d’événement qui s’est couronné de succès à maintes reprises dans le domaine de l’informatique. Le but est de travailler sur de petits projects concrets pouvant être complétés en peu de temps afin de tester les assomptions initiales, construire des équipes et générer du momemtum pour les idées prometteuses.

QUI EN BÉNÉCIFIERONT?

Les designers et programmeurs auront accès à un savoir et à des connexions spéciales d’un immense et important marché possédant une barrière d’entrée très difficile.

Les professionnels de la santé verront leurs idées rapidement transformées en réalité en travaillant main dans la main avec des développeurs tout en évitant le long processus habituel de consultation qui est très couteux.

Les patients recevront de meilleurs traitements (et ce plus rapidement) car notre système de santé sera plus efficient.

Les citoyens sauveront de l’argent car l’utilisation de cette technologie réduira les coûts et propulsera le secteur de la santé au 21-ième siècle.

BUTS

Générer des opportunités de carrières pour les designers et développeurs

Due à la politique et à la régularisation, la santé est un marché difficile à pénétrer. Il est donc aisé d’être intimidé par ces grandes barrières d’entrée et ainsi débuter sa carrière dans un milieu plus accessible. HackingHealth est conçu dans le but de donner aux innovateurs talentueux un accès rapide au marché de la santé.

Catalyser l’innovation dans le domaine de la santé Le développement d’une technologie requiert une certaine connaissance qui peut facilement intimider les gens. En fait, des milliers de dollars sont gaspillés dans la création d’une preuve de concept qui pourrait être créée en quelques heures par une équipe compétente. En focussant sur le développement rapide de prototypes logiciels, il est possible de contourner le temps et le côut typique des consultations traditionnelles, tout en créant de nouvelles relations entre les experts de la technologie et les profesionnels de la santé.

Our Motivation

Healthcare is a critically important field which deserves attention from the best minds in technology. It is a large, meaningful, resilient market. A great place in which to build a technology career.

...however...

Technology alone is not enough to change healthcare. We must pair technology expertise with deep knowledge and credibility from inside healthcare: designers and programmers require inside connections in order to know what to build and how to implement change in complex human institutions.

Why is this necessary?

Many of the people who best understand the problems in healthcare lack the knowledge and network necessary to design and build technological solutions. Likewise, very few designers and programmers have the unique medical knowledge and credibility necessary to successfully innovate in the healthcare space. This knowledge-network gap is costly: problems remain unsolved, efficiencies remain uncaptured. We must empower technology innovators with the knowledge and network required to improve healthcare.

How will it work?

Beginning the evening of February 24th and running all day February 25th, 2012, designers and developers will collaborate with doctors, nurses, clinic managers and other health professionals to rapidly prototype solutions that can be put to test in clinics and hospitals. The goal is twofold:

1. In the short-term, develop working software which can immediately improve healthcare by solving known, bite-sized problems.

2. In the long-term, nurture collaborative partnerships between technology innovators and healthcare experts.

Hacking Health is based on the “hackathon” model, an event format which has proven tremendously successful in the world of software. By emphasizing hands-on work on small projects which can be tackled in a short period of time, we can quickly test assumptions, build teams, and generate momentum for promising ideas in healthcare.

Who benefits?

Designers and programmers will get access to inside knowledge and connections in a large, resilient market with high barriers to entry.

Healthcare professionals will see ideas turned into reality by working hands-on with innovators, bypassing typical consulting processes which are lengthy and expensive.

Patients will receive better, faster treatment as our healthcare system becomes more effective and efficient.

Taxpayers will save money as we use technology to reduce costs and bring healthcare management into the 21st century.

Who is organizing this?

A diverse team of technical & medical collaborators.

Get Involved

What is a hackathon?

A hackathon is a collaborative computer programming event attended by developers and designers who want to have fun and learn new skills by rapidly building prototypes of their ideas.

A hackathon often begins with project pitches, where individuals make short presentations to describe the idea they would like to work on. Based on these presentations, attendees can choose to join a project which interests them. At the end of the day, everyone gathers to see each team present what they accomplished.

How is Hacking Health different from a typical hackathon?

Hacking Health is designed to mix hackers with healthcare professionals who may not know how to design or program, but have a deep understanding of problems that need to be solved, as well as strong connections to target users of applications that will be developed.

The mixing of healthcare and technical professionals adds unique value and challenge to this event. Medical professionals will need to learn how to adapt their ideas for a technical audience; Hackers will need to make extra effort to understand unfamiliar problems and help non-technical domain experts refine their ideas.

Who can attend?

Hackers with skills -- programmers, designers, and the like - are asked to come and join a projects, as well as work with healthcare professionals to explore their ideas.

Healthcare Professionals with ideas that require technical assistance -- doctors, surgeons, nurses, administrators, etc -- are asked to come and present their ideas. Our goal will be to use the skills and energy of other attendees to move each idea forward.

Is there a cost?

No. We are working with our sponsors to make the event free of charge.

What is the goal?

In the short term, our goal is to rapidly prototype practical ideas that could be useful in healthcare.

Our broader vision is to foster the kind of collaborative, cross-disciplinary relationships that lead to more significant innovation down the road. Not all ideas can be prototyped in a day, and many ideas lay dormant simply because domain experts do not know who to talk to about building their ideas.

We believe that healthcare will improve as we bring technical expertise closer to front-line problems.

Who can submit a project?

Anyone who brings a healthcare-related idea will have the opportunity to pitch it to the group, and try to assemble the right team to move it forward.

Do projects have to be submitted beforehand?

Several days before the event, we will launch a collaborative online space where you can pitch your idea to other attendees, and hackers can browse projects to see what interests them.

If you have questions about your idea, please email us: ideas@hackinghealth.ca

What about intellectual property -- who will own my idea?

As a facilitator, Hacking Health does not make any claims to IP that emerges from the event. It up to each team to decide ownership of any work that is done during the hackathon. Teams generally share IP based on individual contributions and commitment, but project leads should establish that with their team in advance.

A hackathon is an ideal place to work on ideas which you are comfortable sharing with others, but this does not mean that you must give up ownership of your idea or project. Some hackathon projects lead to the founding of a real company down the road, while others are released for free to the community. It is up to each project lead to decide on a structure, and communicate this to collaborators.

The risks of exposing an idea are often outweighed by the benefits of the feedback and collaboration you will receive if people get excited about your vision. If you have concerns about the IP in your project, we recommend consulting a lawyer.

Location


Thompson House
McGill University
3650 Rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
View Larger Map

Schedule

Friday, February 24
6:00 pm: Opening Reception. (welcome with drinks and snacks)
7:30 pm: Project Pitches. 3 minute pitches from health professionals and from the floor. Opened by Dylan Hardy, of KPMG's growing healthcare practice. (See bio. )
Until closing: Team formation and group hacking. Teams form, and begin discussing approaches to the projects.

Saturday, February 25

8:00 am: Doors open with coffee and breakfast. Hacking begins! Brainstorm with your team, and hack until lunch.
10:30-10:45am: Speaker: Julia Belluz: How to improve media coverage for your work. See details.
12:30-1:00pm: Lunch
1:00 - 5:30 pm: Hack till the sun goes down!
5:30pm: Submissions Due. Stop hacking and submit your presentation!
6:00pm: Final reception, with guest speaker JL Neptune from Health 2.0.
6:30 - 7:30pm: Team Presentations
7:30pm - 8:00pm: Eat, drink, and be merry!
8:00pm: Prize announcements
8:30pm - late: Eat, drink, and be merry!

Organizers

Jeeshan Chowdhury @jeeshanc
Jeeshan is completing a MD/PhD as a Rhodes scholar at the Universities of Alberta and Oxford. He has worked across the breadth of healthcare technology from building patentable diagnostics to evaluating information technology systems. He is currently a Sauvé scholar using his experience to build health tech startups to improve access to healthcare with innovative web and mobile solutions.
Andrew Cleland @andrew_cleland
Andrew is a McGill Law graduate who is passionate about public health, technology, and social entrepreneurship. Having previously worked in human rights law and international relations, he is currently articling with the legal department of a high-tech company, and volunteering with non-profit projects addressing homelessness, civic engagement, and open data.
Dominic Couture-Savoie @phzbox
Dominic is a software engineer who is passionate about startups, technologies and gaming. With Matthew and Jeeshan, he is using his technical expertise to improve access to healthcare with innovative web and mobile solutions.
Jake Hirsch-Allen @jakehirschallen
Recently a startup and intellectual property lawyer, Jake is currently a business development consultant for several Montreal-based startups and a Toronto-based accelerator and law firm. Jake also consults for Incentives for Global Health and has previously worked in international criminal law, foreign policy and graphic design.
Matthew Huebert @geoshift
Matthew is programmer, designer, and entrepreneur based in Montréal. Previously Matthew co-founded Bodo, a consumer health technology design, marketing, retail, and distribution company with activities in China and Canada. Current interests include computational linguistics, learning systems, and health.
Nicolas Lupien @niclupien
Nicolas is a devops in a non profit health care institution in Sherbrooke. His organization works closely with the University of Sherbooke, the CSSS-IUGS and the CHUS to provide large scale solutions to improve the care systems in 5 different countries. He uses recent technologies like Grails to do rapid iterations and release high quality and cutting edge softwares.
Angelique Mannella @angemannella
Angelique began her career as a semiconductor designer at Cisco Systems Inc. Subsequently, she worked in technology consulting, business development, and mobile product management in Canada, Singapore and Finland. Angelique is a professional engineer, and has degrees from McGill University (BEng), the London School of Economics (MSc), and INSEAD (MBA). Angelique is currently involved in Nokia’s IdeasProject "Apps to Empower Women" program which focuses on developing mobile apps to improve women’s access to personal care products in rural India.
Jo Ho @avocadojo
Jo is an interface and experience designer currently based in Montréal. She's had six years of varied experience from Madman Entertainment, Deloitte Online to Lonely Planet.

After a couple years of traveling, Jo relocated from Melbourne to Montréal in 2010 to eat poutine, learn a spot of french and brave winters. Here she worked at Aeroplan and now at w.illi.am as an interaction designer.

Occasionally, she spends time helping people with some design work or idea poking.

Alan Murgita
Alan is a Mechanical Engineering and Management graduate from McGill University. He is a member of the Montreal Aerospace community, having worked at Pratt and Whitney Canada as a control systems analyst on their turboprop and turbofan engine lines. He is currently working as a project manager at Bombardier Aerospace on the CSeries program. He is passionate about technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and hopes to one day unseat Lewis Hamilton as lead driver for McLaren's Formula 1 team.
Lisa Guimond
Lisa began her career in Marketing and Communications with a specialization in Fashion Marketing where she worked in media planning, online branding, and event coordination for Diesel. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Literature from McGill University and is currently an editor at enRoute magazine where she oversees client relations and content creation. She is passionate about brand management, business development, and digital innovations within the publishing community.
Philippe Mongeau
Philippe is a project manager from HEC who has spent the past 10 years working in a variety of IT environments (Telus, Videotron, Quebecor, Verint). He recently worked at HMR (Hôpital Maisonneuve Rosemont) as an administrative assistant for two years, and is now a project manager for health/pharma related solutions/actions with Génération d’idées.

Press

Press Release Media Kit

Presse

Communiqué de presse Dossier de presse