The WA Health Hackathon was an incredible success!
Read about the winners, sponsors, mentors and solutions here.
This year’s WA Health Hackathon is brought to you by WA Data Science Innovation Hub (WADSIH), the Department of Health (DoH), Microsoft, WA Life Science Hub and the Department of WA North Metropolitan Health Service. There will be six Challenges for WA’s innovators, technologists and software gurus to resolve.
Starting on Monday 9 October, participants will have access to cutting-edge synthetic data, expert mentorship, and a shot at major prizes, plus ongoing support to bring their solutions to life.
Don’t miss your chance to be part of this major event in WA’s innovation calendar!
Thanks to our Technical Sponsor Microsoft, enticing prizes and ongoing support await to ensure that prototypes birthed from WA’s innovation ecosystem drive impactful change across the State.
Register now as a Participant:
The six Challenges cover a variety of different elements of WA’s healthcare systems. Each of the Challenges will be paired with supporting data and dedicated mentors. These Challenges are big and complex! They will require participants to dedicate slightly more time to developing and testing their ideas than a normal hackathon would require. To help this we will be having dedicated mentoring sessions and a week-long, moderated chat system to help answer any questions that teams might have.
1. How can we use our data to help improve patient flow through Emergency Departments in WA public hospitals without compromising care quality?
2. How can we improve our surgical and operational planning to reduce patient wait times?
3. Hospitals are often at the end of a long chain of service interactions. How could we use non-health data feeds and optimisation technologies to improve our operational planning for Emergency Departments?
4. A cancer diagnosis is a significant moment for a patient and their support network. It often leads into a long period of treatment and support. Prevention and early detection play a big role in positive outcomes. How could we better track and support cancer patients through this journey? Can we pre-emptively identify potential patients through target interviews and other ongoing, cancer detection programs?
5. Hospitals are complex systems with data being transferred from patient to nurse, to doctor, to surgeon, to GP and back to the patient – all through a variety of technologies. With new technologies emerging every day how could we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase efficiencies in clinical practice?
6. Our patients are at the heart of all the health system – we are always trying to do better for you. Using modern digital tools and thinking how can we provide patients with better ways to interact with their care process and provide us feedback?
Hackathons are collaborative and innovation focussed events that see participants build prototype solutions to solve challenges. When we say ‘hack’ in this context we mean to encourage quick solving something through a prototype, not breaking into a software system. Solutions are generally software-based programs, but they can also be new designs or even insightful improvements for processes and other issues. Given the time constraints (you’ll only have a week!) a prototype can be as simple as a small piece of code, a website or even a presentation. The point is to have fun helping our community.
Here is a timeline of all the pre-event and main events for the Hackathon:
One of the goals of the WA Health Hackathon 2023 is to encourage our participants develop compelling, viable prototypes. To achieve this we have stretched out the timetable of the Hackathon to give you the best chance to understand the technical complexities of the Challenges and more time to build your solutions.
The Launch Event on Monday 9 October will see the release of the data and provide a great moment to thank our partners and supporters.
The Workshops on Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11 and Thursday 12 October provide you with dedicated time to meet the mentors and ask them your initial questions about the Challenges and data.
The Hackathon Weekend over the Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 October is the centrepiece of the Hackathon and will provide you with dedicated time to build your prototypes if you haven’t started on that yet. We’ll also hold our First Round Pitches on the Sunday.
On Thursday 19 October we’ll hold our Finale to hear the brilliant work of our Shortlisted Teams and celebrate all the work you have put in.
Each Workshop focuses on two Challenges:
At each workshop mentors that are specialists in the Challenge will be available to answer your questions. We will also conduct a deep dive into the data sets that may help you build a solution to your question.
No! We’re completely realistic that everyone has other priorities. This is supposed to be a fun event where you can give back to our community by solving impactful Challenges. This isn’t supposed to feel like work.
If you can attend a Workshop then please do so. We anticipate that it will be very useful for you to talk with mentors and explore the supporting data sets.
We do anticipate that some teams will begin working on their prototypes before the Hackathon Weekend and that’s great, but you’re under no obligation to do so.
The Supporting Events are intended to give you more time and information to help you think through how you might solve your Challenges. We strongly encourage that you attend the workshop relevant for your Challenge.
The only compulsory events that you need to attend to be eligible for a prize are:
We will require that participants are part of a team for the WA Health Hackathon 2023. We’ve noticed that participants have more fun as part of a team and that the prototypes which are built tend to be more impactful.
We are running some casual team building and networking events in the lead up to the Hackathon Launch. Watch our LinkedIn for more information about these events.
You will need to register your team and the Challenge you are exploring, in person at 11:00AM on Saturday 14th October at the Hackathon Event, Curtin University Building 216, (see Curtin Campus Maps for more info).
Yes, but keep in mind the following requirements:
Saturday 14th October 2023 is The 2023 Referendum – Indigenous Voice voting day. There are several polling places that are close to the Hackathon Event.
You can also submit an Early Vote from 2nd October 2023. More information can be found on the AEC website.
At 13:00PM on Sunday 15 October 2023 teams will have three minutes to ‘pitch’ their idea to our judges. Judges will also have an optional one minute of questions. This pitch can take whatever form you’d like – demonstrations are always a great way to show off what you’ve built. Using a defined Judging Criteria the Judges will select the five most compelling solutions. The teams on this Shortlist will be invited to pitch at the Finale on the Thursday 19 October 2023.
At 17:30PM on Thursday 19 October 2023 shortlisted teams will have five minutes to ‘pitch’ their idea to our judges. Judges will also have an optional one minute of questions. This pitch can take whatever form you’d like – demonstrations are always a great way to show off what you’ve built. Using a defined Judging Criteria the Judges will award the prizes to these shortlisted teams.
The judges will be announced at the Launch Event.
Yes. The Department of Health will be providing a range of data sets including a rich set of synthetic data. Teams are also encouraged to seek out and use other open data sources that might help them validate their solution.
Participants will be able to access the various data sets through the Portal. Access to the WA Health Hackathon Data Hosting Portal will be opened at the Launch Event.
No, but if you are under the age of 18, you will need to be accompanied by a guardian at all times.
The Launch event, Workshops and the Finale will all be held at the Old Perth Boys School (139 St Georges Terrace, Perth).
The Hackathon (weekend) Event will be held at Innovation Central Perth (Building 216) on Curtin University Bentley Campus. The easiest main roads access points are from the Kent Street Main Entrance or the Manning Road Main Entrance.
See the Curtin Campus Maps for more info.
The Launch, Workshops and Finale will all be held at the Old Perth Boys School (139 St Georges Terrace, Perth). Transport to this location can be found by visiting the Transperth website. There are also CPP and Wilson parking lots close to this venue.
The Hackathon Event will be held at Innovation Central Perth (Building 216) on Curtin University Bentley Campus. Transport to this location can be found by visiting the Transperth website. Parking over the weekend is free at any BLUE zones on the Bentley Campus.
Visit the Curtin website here for more info.
This will be an event where we explore how Generative AI techniques can help solve major issues affecting WA. We’d strongly recommend bringing along a laptop and a collaborative mindset!
There will not be food or refreshments at the Launch, Workshops or Finale, as these are shorter events.
However lunch and some drinks will be provided over the course of the Hackathon Weekend on the 14th & 15th October.
If you have any further questions you can contact WADSIH via wadsih@curtin.edu.au or reach out to Hackathon Lead Tim Sondalini, at tim.sondalini@curtin.edu.au
Photos from the 2022 WA Health Hackathon
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.
