Teams from the WA Health Hackathon 2024
The health sector in WA presents unique challenges because of the remoteness of facilities, a widely spread population, and increasingly disparate and separate digitised systems intended to enable it all.
The WA Health Hackathon 2024, bought to you by the WA Data Science Innovation Hub and generously supported by HBF Health, The North Metropolitan Health Service, The Child and Adolescent Health Service, The WA Department of Health, the WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub and Arkahna, tapped the potential in today’s programmers and coders to apply to the biggest problems facing the sector.
Teams of student and enthusiast innovators came together with a series of program mentors and judges, selecting from five of the most urgent health sector data problems identified by a panel and using their expertise to build the tools that might solve them.
1. Planning youth mental health interventions.
2. Improving end of life care.
3. Simplifying and enhancing complex health information provided to patients.
4. Reducing emergency department wait times.
5. Optimising treatment plans for kids in rehab.
The technical knowledge and passion on show throughout the event wasn’t only evident, it inspired everybody involved, from our panel of mentors to judges and, during our October 24 Finale event, the entire audience who attended.
Congratulations to the winners, runners up and notable mentions:
HBF Health Hackathon Prize:
Waiting Around
Honourable Mention:
Coder Dojo
Honourable Mention:
Torab
Technical Achievement Prize:
The A* Team
Youth Participation Prize:
Polarstate
What was obvious on the night however was that every team who contributed was a winner. The opportunity to present to and impress decision makers in the health industry and the informal networking that followed proceedings was invaluable, not just for the next generation of data scientists and programmers but the business and services that will be employing them.
Sponsors HBF Health, Department of Health (WA Health), North Metropolitan Health Service, Child and Adolescent Health Service, Arkahna and WA Life Sciences Innovation Hub provided a prize pool of $7,000 which was shared among the winners, and Arkhana provided invaluable support creating the data pool the participating teams drew from for their work, without which there wouldn’t have been a Hackathon.
The success of the Hackathon was greatly enhanced by the guidance and expertise of our esteemed judges and mentors. Their insights and feedback were instrumental in shaping the event and supporting the participants.
The entire event was jovial, fun and full of good natured, healthy and respectful competition. But the WA Health Hackathon exists to address serious real world problems that are having an impact on West Australians’ lives.
It sends a message to the industry, the people who work in it today and the people who’ll do so in the near future; technologies in data science and AI don’t just have a place in transforming the industry, they’re crucial.
As technology evolves and more inspiration and talent continues to emerge from schools, clubs and the enthusiast community, we look forward to more Hackathons in 2025 and beyond.
Thanks to the participants, supporters, and partners for making the WA Health Hackathon 2024 a resounding success!
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.
