The 2022 WA Health Hackathon brought together over 60 data and digital specialists, consultants, students and academics to explore innovative digital and data-driven solutions to real world healthcare challenges. WADSIH worked with various WA healthcare providers and research organisations to develop a set of challenges that teams could work on, paired with real-life specialised and open source datasets.
The challenges included:
Participants came together in multidisciplinary teams to explore the data, ideate solutions, develop concepts and pitch their solutions. Participants took part in upskilling workshops, had one-on-one sessions with domain-experts, and absorbed a HUGE amount of information and data to produce some truly remarkable healthcare solutions.
WADSIH is proud to deliver the WA Health Hackathon in conjunction with MTPConnect WA Life Science Innovation Hub and with the support of our event partners Amazon Web Services, idoba, Perth Biodesign, Spacecubed , Telethon Kids Institute and the UWA Data Science Club.
We had a fantastic turnout of 100+ to launch the 2022 WA Health Hackathon at Spacecubed’s FLUX in the Perth CBD. We were grateful to have the Hon Stephen Dawson, Minister for ICT and Innovation give an opening address, highlighting the crucial need for innovation in this space, and the WA State governments ongoing commitment to provide such opportunities. We were also fortunate to hear from a range of healthcare innovators who shared their journeys and expertise – Bachir Awad, Head of Healthcare, APJ at Amazon Web Services (AWS); Nicholas Buckley Co- Founder at VeinTech; Dr Julien Flack CTO at Artrya Ltd; Dr Sarah Doyle Founder of What the Doctor Said; and Dr Marcus Tan Founder, CEO & Medical Director at Health Engine.
Our participants left feeling inspired and ready to dive into a week of upskilling, data-analysing and solution building!
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UPSKILLING
We wanted to ensure that all participants got off on the right foot and were well prepared for the task ahead. Thanks to some amazing event partners, we were able to give all participants access to three free upskilling workshops covering solution design principles, online technical tools, and communication and pitching techniques.
We were thrilled to once again have the support of Perth Biodesign for our Hackathon, delivering fantastic workshops for our participants two years in a row.
Intan Oldakowska and Matthew Oldakowski are leaders in healthcare innovation training and gave our participants the best possible start to tackling their Hackathon challenges. Their workshop covered the Stanford Biodesign process and delved into human centred design in the healthcare setting. This workshop helped teams understand how to define the unmet clinical need, form a need statement and identify considerations critical to creating a solution.
Technical Training, by Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Wed 10th August
Day 2 of WA Health Hackathon upskilling saw Brett Looney, Principal Solution Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilitate a technical workshop for participants. Thanks to our event partners, AWS, all participants were given an AWS account to work on their Hackathon solutions.
Brett stepped participants through the AWS cloud, how to navigate their accounts, and highlighted some of the features and tools available to use during the hackathon. These tools supported participants in the development of their solutions, and allowed them to get technical with their data analysis. Anupiya Nugaliyadde, data scientist at idoba, was also on hand to answer questions from our teams regarding their technical solutions. Brett and Anupiya ensured our participants were well equipped and ready to tackle their challenges.
Our final upskilling session for the WA Health Hackathon got our participants confident and ready for their final hackathon stage – communicating and pitching their ideas.
Oliver Bazzani, Manager of Perth Angels, walked participants through the skills they need to frame a clear and compelling pitch and confidently convey their solution to our Hackathon judges. Having seen his fair share of pitches and making plenty himself, Oliver provided practical guidance to not only benefit participants during the hackathon but well beyond the competition.
Our teams worked together over the Hackathon weekend to ideate, prototype and develop some fantastic solutions. Thanks to the support of our event partner, the UWA Data Science Club, we were able to secure the fantastic facilities at the UWA Ezone for teams to utilise.
We had a number of roving experts on hand to assist teams along the way, answering any questions and offering advice and support. Amazon Web Services provided on-the-ground technical support in the form of solution architects and product managers. We were also fortunate to have Camilo Pestana, head of data and software at VitalTrace, Ed Lewis, Director Data and Analytics at idoba, and Anupiya Nugaliyadde, Data Scientist at idoba, on hand to support our teams. We’re so grateful to our experts for taking the time out of their weekend to support this fantastic event.
The Round 1 pitches saw 16 teams give a five minute pitch to a panel of expert judges, a nerve wracking but vitally important stage of the Hackathon process that mimics the real world commercialisation pathway.
Our expert judges for the evening included Tracey Wilkinson, Director of Stakeholder Engagement at MTPConnect WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub; Nikhilesh Bappoo, Co-Founder, Director and CTO of VeinTech; and Catherine Resnick GAICD, Senior Director Programs at ANDHealth.
Our judges have a wealth of experience under their belts in innovation and commercialisation, specific to the healthcare sector. They have all established and founded digital health enterprises and are experienced innovators in the WA healthcare sector.
The judges certainly had their work cut out for them with all teams producing incredible healthcare solutions in such a short time.
The top five teams to go through to Thursday’s finals (in no particular order)were :
• Eliiza (Jenny Vo, Nicholas Anile)
• Hackules (Broderick McCallum-Hee, Keaton Wright, Riley Croxford)
• Mechanical Rock (Joseph Miocevich, Matthew C.)
• Team A (Russell Menezes, Teryne Yong)
• The SQLizers (Christine Harcourt-Cooke, Jordan Thompson-Giang, Alexia Fassetta, Vyvienne Bautista, Yunn Wadi Tun)
After a few days of rest it was onto finals night for our top 5 teams, ready to pitch their solution to a new panel of experts. The difficult task of deciding a winner lay upon the shoulders of our expert judges John Konstantopoulos, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Artrya Ltd; Charlie Gunningham, Director of Innovation at Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation; Kate Lewkowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Neurotologix; and Dr Simon Graindorge, COO of OncoRes Medical.
We were also joined by the Hon. Stephen Dawson MLC who gave an opening address as well as Nasir David, Director Data and Information Systems at WA Department of Health who discussed transforming health data access. We then heard from Nicole O’Connor, WA/SA Public Sector Sales Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Ed Lewis, Director Data and Analytics at idoba.
A massive congratulations to the winners of the 2022 WA Health Hackathon – HACKULES! Well done to Broderick McCallum-Hee, Keaton Wright, Riley Croxford on all your hard work and for delivering a fantastic healthcare solution! The winners took home $10,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits and $5000 cash thanks to idoba.
Hackules tackled ‘Early Detection of Sepsis’ and came up with a data-driven model that can identify patients at risk of developing sepsis. Using emergency department/hospital data and triage notes they were able to detect potential sepsis cases quickly so clinicians can make informed decisions for patient care. This solution has the potential to be easily integrated into current processes to identify at-risk patients earlier, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes.
Congratulations to our runners up who were equally impressive in their solutions – Team Eliiza, who developed a Hospital Operations Planning Engine (HOPE) to help address burnout and stress among doctors and nurses with automated and efficient hospital systems. And also to the SQLizers who developed a dashboard highlighting mental health distress changes across various demographics to improve mental health initiatives.
Well done to all of our hackathon teams, you should be so proud of what you’ve achieved in such a short amount of team. We were blown away by the calibre of solutions put forward, and we hope to see some of these progress into real healthcare solutions for WA.
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THANK YOU
Special thanks to our event collaborators Tracey Wilkinson and the MTPConnect WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub Team for supporting us with the planning and programming of the 2022 WA Health Hackathon.
Thank you to all of the challenge owners for supporting this event – Lindsay Rowe, Innovation Manager at East Metropolitan Health Service; Dr Matthew Anstey, Intensivist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital; Ear Science Institute Australia; Peta Grayson, Senior Project officer, Innovation and Development Hub, North Metropolitan Health Service; and WA Primary Health Alliance.
Thank you to all of the speakers, judges and workshop facilitators who have shared their expertise throughout the week. You’ve shared knowledge, insights and inspiration and we’ve truly valued your contribution.
Special thanks to the Hon. Stephen Dawson MLP who joined us at both the launch and finals night. We’re very appreciative to have the ongoing support of the WA State government, and we’re excited to see the outcomes that can come out of the McGowan government’s investment into innovation, digitisation and data security.
Last but not least, thank you to our amazing event partners who have made this fantastic event possible – Amazon Web Services (AWS), idoba, Perth Biodesign, Perth Angels, Spacecubed, Telethon Kids Institute, and the Data Science Club of UWA.
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WHAT’S NEXT?
WADSIH and our event collaborators, MTPConnect WA life Sciences Hub (WALSIH), have a shared commitment to furthering innovation in the healthcare sector through the use of data and AI. We will be working with all Hackathon teams to ensure they have the opportunity to move their solutions forward and continue the conversation with their respective domain experts. The Hackathon participants represent a huge pool of data-specialist talent that can be utilised by the health sector, and we hope to nurture this in the months ahead.
If you have any questions about the 2022 WA Health Hackathon, or if you’re interested in taking part next year, reach out the WADSIH team
The Use of Synthetic Data for Innovative Solutions & Healthcare in WA The WA Health Hackathon 2023 Photo Caption: WA Health Hackathon Finale, October 19th 2023 OFFICIAL PHOTOS The Use
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We would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which the WADSIH office is located, the Whadjuk people of the Nyungar Nation.
