The second Health Hackathon for innovative solutions combining digital tools and health took place in Kyiv in April. During the 3-day event, 27 teams, including both young professionals and students, worked on innovative digital solutions and products focusing on the areas of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, cancer, and mental health. They received support and guidance from over 170 local information technology (IT) developers and health professionals.
“Our goal is to provide opportunities in Ukraine to identify innovative digital solutions for better health and health care for Ukrainian people,” said Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative in Ukraine. “By holding a Health Hackathon in Ukraine, along with other global hubs, under the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab umbrella, we established a platform for health and information professionals to come together to co-create new solutions and a better future, enabling health-care improvements in Ukraine, Europe and worldwide.”
Organized by the WHO Country Office in Ukraine, in collaboration with the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab, the event ran simultaneously with other global hackathons taking place in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
“Despite the war, we aim to move further in encouraging innovations to support the Ukrainian health-care system with digital tools,” observed Nataliia Piven, Unit Lead, Public Health and Preparedness, WHO Country Office in Ukraine. “The Health Hackathon allows us to generate ideas and develop such IT products,” she added.
From hackathons to incubation labs
As a result of the Hackathon, 3 teams received financial backing and the opportunity to compete for a place in the Venture Incubation Program of the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab. This allows them to fine-tune their ideas from a technical perspective, to create and present business proposals, and to make financial projections for their start-ups, as well as improving their pitching strategies. The winning solutions included:
- “Say Soft” – a speech-to-text application that uses a large language model – a type of artificial intelligence (AI) – to record and summarize counselling sessions, among other tasks (mental health track);
- “svoyi.ridni” – a platform for self-education of patients with chronic diseases and their families (cardiovascular diseases and diabetes track); and
- “eXtra Vision” – an augmented reality application to simplify preoperative training for surgeons (cancer track).
The pre-acceleration programme will provide extended coaching and mentoring support from IT, health and business experts, to equip teams with the necessary tools, knowledge, and networks to navigate the complexities of running a start-up successfully, enhancing their prospects for long-term success and impact in their respective fields.
The Health Hackathon was organized under the initiative of the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab, the WHO Country Office in Ukraine and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, and implemented jointly with Civitta, RadarTech and YEP. It was initiated in partnership with the Ukrainian Startup Fund, the National Cancer Institute and the Ukrainian Scientific and Practical Centre for Endocrine Surgery, and received financial support from the WHO Universal Health Coverage Partnership and the Government of Canada.