Egypt’s First Healthcare Hackathon Aims to Utilize Tech for the Masses

For the first time in Egypt, Health 2.0 | Cairo is hosting a healthcare tech hackathon, HEALTHACK, from March 8 to 10.

HEALTHACK is a sprint-like competition in which computer developers collaborate with professionals to build a winning software project, in just 72 hours. Hackathons have been showing some popularity in the region due to the growing number of tech hubs sprouting across Egypt. But this will be the first hackathon dedicated to creating digital and software solutions for Egypt’s most pressing healthcare needs.

Local and global brands are showing their support for this exciting new competition, and it is sponsored by Smart Medical Services (Egypt-based TPA, Managed Care and technology services company), Fruit Street (US-based diabetes telehealth company) and HIMSS (The world’s largest Healthcare Information Technology Conference). From telemedicine and remote patient monitoring to machine learning, the latest technologies and APIs from Silicon Valley will be showcased and encouraged to be used by developers/participants in the competition.

Health 2.0 | Cairo is the first chapter of its kind. Founded in 2014, this organization is a healthcare tech hub for professionals in the health, startup and programming industry; some of Egypt’s best and brightest medical and tech innovators and problem solvers. Health 2.0 | Cairo is the local chapter of Health 2.0 Conference based in San Francisco.

Founder and Chapter Leader of Health 2.0 | Cairo Omar Shaker speaks about his inspiration to start the chapter and bring a healthcare hackathon to Egypt, saying “After studying medicine in Ain Shams University, I moved to San Francisco and switched careers to healthcare technology and clinical data analytics. Hackathons offered me a door into the industry as an outsider, a way to engage and learn from those who are revolutionizing healthcare and gave me connections that still play a major role in both my professional and personal life today”.

One major problem in Egypt’s health environment are chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart failure, which Health 2.0 has devices that help a patient monitor from home, Shaker told Egyptian Streets. Eventually, such technology should be affordable to poorer Egyptians, affirms Shaker. “The first track of the Hackathon is all about reaching underprivileged communities”, he said.

Teams of healthcare professionals, developers and other like-minded individuals can participate and form groups at the competition. In partnership with Endeavor Egypt, many business mentors and high-impact entrepreneurial minds will be in attendance to assist competing teams with technical and industry advice. Teams must concept, build and pitch their ideas to a panel of elite local health industry professionals. Winners will receive a total of $2500 is cash prizes, a chance to network with top-tier Middle East health professionals and unparalleled mentorship to help launch their prototype into the Egyptian and global market.

If you are a tech startup company, application or technology-based designer or developer, healthcare professional or a venture capitalist (VC) firm who is looking to invest in building the future of Egyptian healthcare, then HEALTHACK encourages you to partake in this event. Aside from the first-ever healthcare hackathon and pitch competition, the weekend-long conference will be content-packed with inspiring events from entrepreneurial and VC networking, panel discussions by top speakers, trending presentations and innovative healthcare technology showcases.

Click here to register.