Hacking Health Hamilton, in collaboration with Mohawk College’s Apps for Health event, will hold the city’s first health hackathon on the 25, 26 and 27 of April, 2014, at Mohawk College, in which doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals and health system administrators, will collaborate with computer scientists, technologists, programmers and designers in the creation of digital solutions to improve the health of Hamiltonians. Hacking Health hackathons are fun, intense, hands­on events where small teams tackle tough problems in a supportive community of peers and mentors.

Register for Hacking Health Hamilton Hackathon:

http://www.hackinghealth.ca/events/hamilton/hhhamilton2014

About Hacking Health

Hacking Health is a social organization that seeks to foster and facilitate collaboration and interdisciplinary experimentation between healthcare professionals and technologists to enable them to work together on realistic, human­centric solutions to front­line healthcare problems, design prototypes (games, apps, websites, web applications, services) and problem­solve new ways to deliver and transform healthcare and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Hacking Health hosts monthly Hacking Health Cafes and weekend­long Hackathons. By creating such creative and innovative spaces, Hacking Health seeks to build bridges between healthcare professionals working in the field, who have ideas of their technological needs, and technology experts who understand how to design and develop such new technologies.

Technology alone cannot necessarily deliver change. However, well­designed, user­informed digital tools can influence individual behaviour and disrupt the traditional methods in which healthcare is delivered and patients treated.

About Hacking Health Hamilton

Hacking Health Hamilton started in the Summer of 2013, when David Kemper, who had relocated to the city a few months before, took note of the city’s robust institutions of higher education, burgeoning technology startup scene, and numerous hospitals and healthcare centres, and saw the potential of bringing the Hacking Health movement to the Steel Town.

Working with other Hamilton volunteers, Hacking Health Hamilton was formed and held its first event, Hacking Health Cafe, on October 22, 2013 at Innovation Factory in the McMaster Innovation Park. The informal free event­­attended by roughly by 50 professionals for the health and IT sectors­­was a success and set the stage for the upcoming hackathon event.

The overarching goal of Hacking Health Hamilton is to bring people from all sectors and disciplines together, but especially from health and technology, and to support collaboration and build partnerships of innovation as the city of Hamilton continues its economic shift from large, heavy industries to education and health services.

Examples of Hackathon pitches and projects (Montreal Hackathon 2014):

http://hh­montreal.sparkboard.com

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David Kemper

on behalf of Hacking Health Hamilton