Centered around the theme “Hacking Healthspan and Longevity,” the 12th annual Yale Healthcare Hackathon showcased how Yale’s vast healthcare ecosystem can catalyze innovation and bring transformative ideas to life. This past weekend, the Anlyan Center at Yale buzzed with energy as over 250 participants forming 18 teams—ranging from high school students to medical residents representing institutions from 16 countries—teamed up to tackle pressing challenges in healthcare. Hosted by the Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT) at Yale Ventures and in collaboration with Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the event drew a global crowd eager to harness their expertise in medicine, technology, and entrepreneurship. With inspiration from keynote speakers Dr. Ahmad Garrett-Price and Dr. Hillary Lin, participants worked tirelessly to develop solutions that could redefine the future of healthspan and longevity.

Projects ranged from digital health applications to biomedically engineered designs. One of the teams, BrightMind, focused on developing a gamified app for dementia screening. “Mental exercise games such as crosswords, sudokus, and puzzles can be tailored on a daily basis based on the patient’s performance,” said Paolo Marazzi, a sophomore undergraduate at Yale. “We can create a sense of community at a time in elderly patients’ lives where community may be hard to come by,” added Vera Vecherskaia, another BrightMind team member from New York University. Their app uses the medically standard Mini Mental State Examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment to detect dementia, a key difference from other gamified apps that lack scientific backing.

In addition to a passion for solving healthcare industry challenges, participants were also drawn to the Hackathon for its team and networking. “Hackathons are unheard of where I’m from,” said team member Juliana Diamatino, a medical student originally from Brazil. She decided to participate in the Hackathon to network with like-minded individuals and bring her experiences back to her home institution.

Dr. Kevin Chen, a former Yale School of Medicine resident and mentor at the event, seconded Diamatino’s point. “I had given a talk once at another medical school, and they were all interested in this topic that was pertinent to that year’s Healthcare Hackathon’s theme.” He encouraged them to attend the Hackathon that year, which they won, and they ended up launching a new hackathon series at their own medical school from their experiences at Yale.

This year’s Hackathon also saw several young participants joining, and in some cases, even leading teams. Varshny Sriganesh, a high school junior, said she signed up to participate in the hackathon because she believes there is so much untapped technology that is yet to be applied to healthcare problems. Anishka Vejendla, a high school freshman wanted to participate because the goal of healthcare to better others’ lives is appealing, as well as the collaborative aspect. They worked on a team including Manyata Pathania, a high school senior, to create a unified electronic medical records system granting greater healthcare independence to patients. Pathania said she came up with a progenitor to the solution at a summer program aimed at increasing healthcare accessibility for minority patients. Joining the Hackathon was the next logical step for her to learn more about the business side of innovation and reaching commercial markets. 

Mentor Dr. Shawn Ong agreed. “It’s really more of an MBA exercise,” he said, “than needing to build an MVP.” Ong, an assistant clinical professor in internal medicine, said the Hackathon pushes teams to think about bigger picture questions over particular details. Teams must start with the pain point and find solutions afterwards, while also considering the ultimate question in the business world—who is motivated enough to buy the solution. Ong believes that rather than being intimidating, Hackathons can be a great place to meet people and grow tremendously by pushing oneself. He hoped more people will participate in future Hackathons and find new ways to work with each other. 

Such was the case with Scan-adage, winner of the $5,000 Rothberg Grand Prize. Team member Imra Asif, a computer science major at the University of Connecticut, described the teamwork process “being akin to a CS algorithm. Ideas are slowly exchanged, separated out, and then meshed back together in completely new ways.” Asif worked as an EMT in high school and found the coalescing nature of her team at the Hackathon extremely encouraging, while also finding a sense of accomplishment far greater than what she thought she was previously capable of.

The original idea for Scan-adage was conceived by Annie Katz, a high school sophomore who said she started coding and taking engineering classes early in elementary school. Scan-adage aimed at creating a smart bandage for post-surgery infection monitoring, reducing further complications and facilitating smooth operation recovery. “It’s so encouraging to see the diverse backgrounds everyone has in business, medicine, and engineering. That it’s all coming together as a team is exciting.”

Cameron Yick, a mentor and former Yale undergraduate, agreed, emphasizing that the Healthcare Hackathon is different from a “traditional CS hackathon”—participants come with different areas of expertise, and “the cross-exposure between doctors and entrepreneurship is critical to the Hackathon’s success each year.”

“It’s the people you meet who are working on things that you thought were never possible—now they’re possible.” said technical program manager and mentor Frank Kuchinski, on what makes Yale’s Healthcare Hackathon uniquely special. 

Awards

Grand Prize: Rothberg Catalyzer at Yale $5,000: Scan-adge  

YSPH Sustainable Health Initiative Prize $1,000: Find My Naloxone

YNHHS Center for Healthcare Innovation Prize $1,000: Precisia

Yale School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Prize $1,000: GrubGuru  

Audience Choice $500: Potato Buds  

Judges

KP (Kaakpema) Yelpaala, MPH
Lecturer and Senior Fellow in Public Health, Yale

Michael Hund, MBA
CEO, EB Research Partnership

Rajit Manohar, PhD  
John C. Malone Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Yale 

Walter Lindop, MBA
Lead, YNHHS Center for Healthcare Innovation

Mark Saltzman, PhD
Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology and of Chemical Engineering, Yale 

Margaret Cartiera, PhD
Innovation Director, Yale Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT)

Ons M’Saad, PhD
Co-founder & CEO, Panluminate  

About Yale Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology

The Yale University Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT) is an interdisciplinary initiative to convene and guide Yale innovators to solve the greatest challenges in healthcare. The center catalyzes biomedical and healthcare technology development by educating the next generation of innovators, mentoring all comers on their journey, and surrounding entrepreneurs with the necessary resources.  

Launched in 2014, Yale CBIT provides support to faculty and students creating novel digital health solutions, medical device technologies, and diagnostics across Yale University.  CBIT has developed partnerships with the Yale School of Medicine, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Management, School of Public Health, Tsai CITY, Yale Ventures, and Yale New Haven Health. In addition to supporting innovation teams working in those spaces, CBIT has established new courses, and sponsored events to contribute to strengthening the Yale innovation community including CBIT’s signature event, the Yale Healthcare Hackathon.