Two weekends ago, I thought I’d give Hacking Health’s Hackathon a shot. In a nutshell, the Hackathon brings together like-minded people from varied backgrounds to develop a healthcare innovation in just two days. I thought it was due time to see what all the hype was about and I wanted to gain some more exposure to the eHealth field. This seemed like the perfect place to do it.
On the Friday evening, I was welcomed into a crowd of hundreds of eager beavers. I tried my best to go with the flow despite feeling a bit unsure of what I got myself into. The next couple of hours were spent listening to one-minute pitches from 42 brave individuals selling a concept they were sure would change the face of healthcare. After the final pitch, audience members got up from their seats and made a dash to learn more from those that piqued their interest and then quickly latched onto their favorite concept. After learning more about my top choices, I enthusiastically joined Dr. Allan Steingart and his vision to craft a technology to better match patients to psychotherapists. I then raced home to do some much-needed cramming. Umm…what is psychotherapy, exactly?
The next morning, four more joined the team – two designers, an MBA graduate and another health researcher. We quickly introduced ourselves and then got to work outlining our concept for evidence-based compatibility matching, navigating user experience pathways, building a business model and branding the idea. In less than 48 hours, we had Glia: a strong brand, wireframes, intake forms based on outcomes proven to strengthen therapeutic alliance, a commercial strategy, a well-rehearsed presentation, sleep deprivation and a whole lot of pride. Didn’t I just meet these people? What day is it??
When it came down to the wire, those 42 initial pitches were reduced to 26 demos of awe-inspiring prototypes, from 3D scanning devices for prosthetic limbs to a smart gadget that monitors smoking behaviour. Each group had 2 minutes to present followed by 2 minutes of harsh questioning by the judges before deliberation (think Dragon’s Den). Much to our humbled surprise, Glia was awarded the PwC Canada Prize for the best innovation to improve access to health care and later received the Hacking Health Choice Award on behalf of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation. It came as a total shock…though we were pretty delirious by that point.
All in all, I was totally impressed by the outstanding passion and perseverance that led to some very high quality innovations in a high pressure environment. I picked up some new skills, met some remarkable people and had a lot of fun in the process!
[Pictured above, from left to right: Xenia Kavoun, Michael-Jane Levitan, Christine Hanson Mark Casselman (from PwC), Mubnii Morshed, Stephanie Rosinski, Allan Steingart]