By: Casey Ma, MBA/MPH ’26, Yale Ventures Associate, Yale Healthcare Hackathon Committee

Event Recap

The 2026 Yale Healthcare Hackathon brought together innovators from around the world on January 23–25 for a three-day event focused on advancing healthcare solutions. Centered on the theme, The Invisible Infrastructure of Health, the event convened participants across disciplines to design technologies and approaches that strengthen the foundations of healthcare delivery.  

Despite the winter storm, the hackathon opened with an inspiring innovation keynote panel led by Kaakpema “KP” Yelpaala, MPH, Senior Fellow and Faculty Director of InnovateHealth Yale. He was joined by a distinguished group of panelists: Dr. Tara Bishop, Founder and Managing Director of Black Opal Ventures and Clinical Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine; Dr. Kameron Matthews, Co-Founder and Director of Tour for Diversity in Medicine and Senior Faculty at the Weitzman Institute; and Dr. Ashwin Vasan, 44th Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Senior Fellow in Health Policy and Global Affairs at Yale University, and Senior Advisor (Healthcare) at Commonweal Ventures. The weekend continued with intensive mentoring, final pitches, and awards—beginning with two energized in-person days at 101 College Street (the Bioscience Tower) in New Haven and transitioning fully remote for the final day. This pivot did nothing to dampen participation or momentum, as teams remained highly engaged through the conclusion of the event.

The event engaged more than 400 registered participants representing 39 countries and 77 academic institutions, who ultimately organized into 32 finalist teams. These teams pursued challenges across care delivery, operational systems, technology, and health equity through 5 distinct focus areas: Ethics, Transparency, and Trust in Health Technologies; Human Infrastructure: Health Workers and Caregivers; Financial and Insurance Systems addressing structure, access, and equity; Public and Global Health Infrastructure; and Health Data Ecosystems centered on interoperability, privacy, and governance. 

Hackathon Award Winners

The Rothberg Catalyzer at Yale Prize 

Awarded to Reclaimant, developed by Connor Chute Marsley, Mesgana Solomon, Annisa Nugrahani, Caprice Culkin, Chaitu Dandu, and Lingling Zheng.

Reclaimant automates insurance claim appeals for small mental health practices by identifying violations of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act using 15 years of legal precedent and integrating with electronic health record systems to generate patient-specific appeals. By enabling solo practitioners to recover up to $35,000 annually, the platform advances enforceable mental health equity at scale.

The Yale School of Public Health Future of Health Innovation Hub Prize 

Awarded to Found in Translation, created by Ajay Shrestha, Naomi Choi, Ceasar Irby, Dhanush Suresh, Christina Wang, Siddharth Kothandam, and Muthukumaran Venkatachalapathy.

Their project, interp, is a human-verified AI interpretation platform that combines real-time translation, interpreter confirmation, and audit trails to reduce medical errors, improve care equity for patients with limited English proficiency, and mitigate legal risk for healthcare institutions.

The Yale New Haven Health Center for Health Care Innovation Prize

Awarded to DialysisLink, developed by Anna Novoselov, Sarah Karim, Juan Velasco, Kenza Moussaoui Rahali, and Marsa Qolbina.  

DialysisLink is a home hemodialysis support platform that integrates machine-generated session data with patient safety profiles and a local nurse response network to address safety gaps, care fragmentation, and emergency response challenges in at-home dialysis.

The Audience Choice Award 

Awarded to Cadence, developed by Arjun Bhonsle, Hamza Modan, Ishaan Kamra, Joseph El-Sayyid, Krish Agarwal, Vihaan Kerekatte, William Wakefield, and Zain Anwar.  

Cadence uses longitudinal speech analysis to continuously monitor cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients, providing clinicians and caregivers with actionable insights while preserving patient privacy by avoiding raw audio storage. 

Acknowledgments

The hackathon was made possible by the thoughtful evaluation of the judges, Margaret Cartiera, PhD; Mohamed Mohamedali, MD; Shawn Ong, MD; Mark Saltzman, PhD; and Kaakpema Yelpaala, MPH, and the generosity of more than 40 mentors who supported teams through free-float mentoring and Genius Bar sessions, offering cross-disciplinary expertise spanning business, technology, medicine, design, and policy. The organizers also acknowledge the prize sponsors, Rothberg Catalyzer at Yale by Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, Yale New Haven Health Center for Health Care Innovation, and the Yale School of Public Health Future of Health Innovation Hub, for their investment in early-stage innovation.

The 2026 Yale Healthcare Hackathon was organized by the Hackathon Committee: Jack Chen, Michelle Ferraiolo, Saba Fooladi, Casey Ma, Monica Manmadkar, David Rosenthal, MD, and Erica Stutz, with support from Yale Ventures, including: Ashley Keller, Amy Kundrat, Michelle McQueen, and Lori Schrager.