(September 16th 2024) Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) alongside TU Dublin and AWS have announced October 4th and 5th as the dates for the Transforming Healthcare Innovation Challenge. Previously known as the Health Hackathon, the event this year has changed to include students from different disciplines across the TU Dublin campuses accounting for the changing needs of healthcare.
Students from disciplines including Computing, Social Care Practice, Health & Sports Science, across TU Dublin will be presented with five different challenges that are set by healthcare professionals working in TUH and in the community.
Working together as a team, students from the different disciplines will have the opportunity to meet with the healthcare professionals on October 4th that set the challenges and answer any questions they have about the challenge set.
The students then have the night and following morning to create a solution and pitch the idea to a panel of judges on October 5th. The presentations are judged on the prototype, the context of the idea and how it addresses the challenge set along with the presentation itself being scored.
There are four award categories under which the winning projects will be selected including Innovation with greatest potential; Best use of technology, Innovation with greatest patient benefit and Most innovative solution.
“This event is constantly evolving and I am delighted to see the inclusion of our healthcare colleagues in the community as well as students from different disciplines. It is only by working together across the healthcare journey of a patient and involving different experiences can we develop the best solutions to the challenges set for this event but also for healthcare delivery in the longer term.” Lucy Nugent, Chief Executive Officer, TUH.
“This event really aligns with the TU Dublin strategic intent of People, Planet and Partnership creating a better world together. Our students enjoy using their skills to solve real impactful challenges and it supports our value of supporting bright minds and creativity. Past participants have won national prizes on their work here and some of the challenges are still being worked on in follow on projects.” Thomas Stone Vice President, Partnerships, TU Dublin.
“We look forward to this event each year, and are delighted to see students from different disciplines involved for the first time. Setting a real life challenge to students and offering them support of using AWS technologies to tackle those challenges is an incredible learning opportunity,” said Joanne Reynolds, Community Engagement Manager, AWS.
David Wall, Chief Information Officer at TUH “The Transforming Healthcare Innovation Challenge is a natural evolution from the previous hackathons. The aim is to improve collaboration between industry, academia and TUH while encouraging increased participation from students off all disciplines in TUD. This events is one of the highlights of the year for TUH.”