Welingkar, Mumbai will be hosting Med4Dev India-Israel Affordable Healthcare Hackathon in collaboration with Tel Aviv University, Israel. The hackathon comes under Pears Program for Global Innovation.
The hackathon will take place parallely at four locations of Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Bangalore and Hyderabad for three days (22-24 July). It has the support of prestigious bodies like: Start-up Nation Centre (Tel Aviv), The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE, Mumbai), T-HuB (Hyderabad), 10,000 start-ups (A NASSCOM Initiative, Hyderabad), and Creators (Tel Aviv).
It brings together Israeli and Indian innovators, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, designers, engineers, programmers and business professionals to develop innovative ideas and prototype solutions (hardware and software) to address healthcare challenges faced by the under privileged sections.
The core idea is to make healthcare affordable and accessible to the weaker sections of the community. Teams with the most promising ideas will be accorded all support which includes cash prizes, several months of mentoring, the possibility of joining either the Pears Challenge accelerator in Israel or a parallel program in India, and access to seed funding.
There will be around 700 participants working in 150 teams across the four locations on nine tracks in healthcare to design go-to-market healthcare strategies and solutions. They will receive on-site and virtual cross-location mentoring. The tracks (challenges) under the spotlight are-
- Anemia Diagnostic test for young girls.
- Food monitoring test for infants.
- Hearing impairment screening and diagnostics.
- Real-time, personal monitoring device for pregnant women.
- Smart pills and digestibles.
- Managing side-effects of chemotherapy for patients in remote ar
- Improving access to funding for cancer treatments
- Psychological counseling platform for cancer patients
- Technology for tracking of children’s immunization
Commenting on the hackathon, Dr Uday Salunkhe, group director, says, “Equal access to healthcare solutions is crucial for a country like India. With a huge demographic segment still being poor, it is imperative for those in leading positions to come together and find solutions to the gaping challenges of unaffordability and inaccessibility. The hackathon synergizes with the partners involved, not only to identify the gaps but also to conjure apt solutions. Considering the capability Tel Aviv University, we hope to create an ecosystem that will truly contribute to improving healthcare in India. Technology and innovation play a stellar role in the entire endeavor. Innovation can spring surprises and much awaited solutions that bridge the gap. And it is not the first time we are working on it. We have successfully worked on similar lines with MIT, US last year and some of the prototypes are in lab being further developed for mainstream.”
Around 25 of Welingkar students are participating in the hackathon.
Nimrod Assouline – Deputy Chief of Mission and Dana Nahari, Head of Economic and Trade Mission from Consulate General of Israel, Mumbai are also expected to be there on the first day of the hackathon.
Last September, Welingkar had signed an MoU with Tel-Aviv University pledging cooperation on possible fronts. One of the goals of the partnership was to develop bridges between the Israeli and Indian innovation ecosystem. Israel has the highest concentration of tech start-ups and venture capital financing per capita in the world, and has been the origin of many of the disruptive technologies. On the other hand, India is known for its frugal innovation. that targets the needs of mass markets in healthcare and other fields. It leads in developing business models based on frugal innovation catering to the vast demography particularly the under privileged. The two countries have been trying to collaborate in R & D to develop hi tech weapons system.
The results of the same will be declared during the final leg of the hackathon on Sunday. The judges will include group director and senior deans of Welingkar.