UPDATES:
Watch yesterday's closing ceremony with 5 of the Spotlight Project teams presenting and closing remarks from our Steering Committee here.
Congratulations to our Spotlight Teams!
Check out our website to view a full list of Spotlight teams and Honorable Mentions.
Public Health Information Sharing- Cov2words
- CoronaRank
- C-19 Vulnerability Index - Powered by ClosedLoop.ai
- Flatten-App
- hc1 COVID-19 Lab Testing Dashboard™
- Airspar Inflatable Field Hospital
- COVIDStay
- Frontline Covid Backtracer
- Infection Exposure Tracker
- Reuze
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Watch Friday's kickoff with Tom Daschle, Dr. Georges Benjamin (APHA), Stephen Konya (ONC), Priyanka Surio (ASTHO), and Bob Borek (Datavant) here.
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Find teammates by using the Participants tab to the right. Join our Slack channel to find teammates and discuss project ideas.
Why?
Our goal is to bring public health professionals alongside the technology community’s talent to contribute to the world’s response to this and future pandemics. There are many different ways to respond to COVID-19, but for health technologists, rapidly building great health technology is what we know how to do. COVID-19 has already caused enormous suffering around the globe. While we’re not doctors or government officials, we want to use the skills we do have to ensure that the crisis doesn’t go to waste.
Tracks
Projects will be divided into four tracks (below). We've curated a list of project ideas based on recommendations from our public health advisory board, front-line responders, and many of you who have registered for the hackathon.
- Public Health Information Sharing. For example, tools for local governments to share information with citizens, tools for information exchange between healthcare professionals, tools for information sharing with patients, etc.
- Epidemiology & Science of the Disease. For example, information sharing tools between researchers investigating the disease; novel use of data sets to understand the rate of spread of the disease; tools to facilitate clinical trial recruitment and operations for COVID-19 studies; etc.
- Keeping our Health Workers Safe. For example, workload coordination tools; information sharing tools with best practices; etc.
- Second-Order Societal Impacts. For example, projects to address mental well-being at nursing homes in light of restricted visitors; ways to help curate public health information and curb disinformation
Mentors
We are working with a team of mentors who will serve as subject matter experts that can provide guidance and feedback across multiple project teams. Their objective is to ensure that teams are building solutions that are both meaningful and feasible to use in the real world. We are aiming to have 4-5 mentors per track.
Mentors will be holding office hours throughout the weekend, and we will provide information on their availability once finalized.
Mentors include:
- Stephen Konya, Senior Innovation Strategist, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Department of Health & Human Services
- Kathleen O’Neill, MHA, VP Quality & Systems Improvement, American Heart Association
- Brooke Buckley, MD, FACS, Chief Medical Officer, Corelife
- Jason Bhan, Chief Medical Officer of Prognos Health
- Lamia Pardo, CEO & Founder of Journify
- Zahid Butt, CEO of Medisolv
- Sean Griffin, CEO of DisasterTech
- Jeff Trotter, SVP, Worldwide Evidence, Worldwide Clinical Trials
- Ingrid Oakley-Girvan, SVP, Research & Strategy, Medable
- Deepika Nimmagadda, Life Sciences & Health Technology Consultant
- Kate Liebelt, Strategy Engagement Manager, Deloitte
- Paul Berrini, Senior Manager, Manatt Health Strategies, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
When?
Pandemic Response Hackathon Schedule
- Friday March 27
- Full-day participation in hackathon begins! If you haven’t already, use the Slack channel to find a team and start working on projects.
- 4pm PST / 7pm EST: Kickoff conference call with opening remarks and brief review of hackathon rules. If you haven’t found a team, we’ll have an open pitch session from project teams after opening remarks.
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6pm PST / 9pm EST: Hackathon organizers to conduct check-ins with each project team
- Saturday March 28
- Full-day participation in hackathon continues
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12pm PST / 3pm EST: Hackathon organizers to conduct check-ins with each project team
- Sunday March 29
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9pm PST / 12am EST: Project submissions (short demo videos) due on Devpost
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Tuesday March 31: Announce Spotlight Projects for each track based on Steering Committee deliberation
-
Wednesday April 1
- 4pm PST / 7 pm EST: Conference call to present Spotlight Projects
For spotlighted projects, Datavant will continue providing support to teams to bring products to market, with the goal of getting solutions implemented and in the hands of patients, providers, and public health officials as quickly as possible.
Eligibility
Individuals (over 18 years of age; between 13 and 18 years of age with permission of legal guardian); teams (no size limit); organizations
Requirements
The hackathon isn't limited to projects built during the hackathon - bring things you've already been working on, or build on top of resources that others have already put together. We'll be actively matching projects in progress with the resources they need to be successful.
We encourage short videos (~2 minutes) to display your project.
Submissions should include a name and description with the team members, what solution the entry product solves, and under which “track” it falls. Submissions must include at least a design and a prototype, or simulation where applicable, along with a proposal of next steps, path forward, and a description of the necessary resources and plan to implement the project. Video demonstrations are encouraged and should be submitted as a link to Youtube, Vimeo, or Youku.
Any and all tech stacks are welcome, but we encourate teams build on tech stacks that are easy to scale and commonly used. Any necessary supplementary files, such as installation files or instructions, should be included with the submission as a single file or a zip.
Prizes
Spotlight Project
(18)
What you're building meaningfully helps people around the world.
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges

David Shulkin
Former Secretary of the VA

Tom Daschle
Former Senate Majority Leader

Don Berwick
Former Administrator of CMS

Andrew von Eschenbach
Former Commissioner of FDA

Mark McClellan
Former Commissioner of FDA

Ed Simcox
Former CTO, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

Tom Leppert
Former Mayor of Dallas

Eric Perakslis
Former CIO of FDA

Peter Neupert
Healthcare Technology Leader

Olympia Snowe
Former Senator

Sheila Burke
Current Lecturer, Former Dean of Harvard Kennedy School

Priyanka Surio
Director of Data & Informatics, ASTHO
Judging Criteria
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Practicality
Could the idea quickly and directly impact those affected by the crisis - physicians, health officials and policymakers, researchers, patients and caregivers? -
Feasibility
Did the team execute on the idea in such a way that it could be rapidly deployed for production?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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