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In less than two weeks George Hacks will host its fourth annual Medical Solutions Hackathon this January 16th-17th, 2021! Our team has been working tirelessly throughout the last few months in order to make this event even more exciting than our last and we can’t wait to see what innovative projects teams will come up with! Here are a few things to look forward to!
In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the hackathon will be a fully virtual event hosted on Discord and Zoom. Discord will be organized into several servers with channels for participants to navigate throughout the event. Here participants will get a chance to introduce themselves and meet other participants as well! For those without a team, this would be an opportunity for them to potentially meet their other team members that they would want to work with.
George Hacks is also honored to have Tammy Landeen as our keynote speaker this year. Tammy is an incredible individual that has overcome many obstacles through her determination and grit. She is an Army Veteran and Quality of Life + Challenger who served as a Tactical Power Generation Specialist in the US Army. Unfortunately, after sustaining a severe spinal cord injury in 2002, Tammy was left wheelchair bound. Despite the difficulties she faced, Tammy lives life to the fullest and continues to work with engineers to improve her quality of life everyday.
In addition to Discord, students will also be able to make introductions during our pre-hackathon workshops and activities. Led by our George Hacks team members, three workshops and a baking night will be hosted before the hackathon begins. These workshops will be crash courses on a variety of skills, both business and technical, that teams may utilize during the brainstorming and/or pitching stage of the competition. These sessions will be a low stress environment for participants to learn new skills, get to know each other, and ask any questions that they may have.
During the hackathon, we will also host three other workshops and two more activities for participants to join. For more information on the schedule keep a look out on our Instagram page (@george.hacks) or join our Discord channel! All sessions will be available as recordings to participants to access at any time during the competition.
New this year, George Hacks is introducing tracks for the first time! Each pitch that we have received has been placed in one of three tracks. Participants will be able to select a track to work on and generate solutions based on the pitches presented within each track! The three tracks are as follows;
- Assistive Technology. Pitches under this track inspire the development of assistive devices and software to aid providers and patients with effective diagnosis and/or rehabilitation.
- Telemedicine. Pitches under this track bring awareness to the challenges faced by healthcare providers who wish to shift their medical practice to a remote setting, especially in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
- Communication. Pitches under this track motivate solutions to facilitate better communication across the local medical community network so that patients can access care and resources in the most efficient way possible.
These are just some of the things our team has worked on the last few months. There are many more surprises in store so be sure to sign up for the hackathon if you haven’t already! Follow our Instagram for updates and check out our FAQ page if you have any questions.
