Planning an innovation marathon at an infectious disease conference with results from the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance 2016 Hackathon

John W Ramatowski; Christopher Xiang Lee; Aikaterini Mantzavino; João Ribas; Winter Guerra; Nicholas D Preston; Eva Schernhammer; Lawrence C Madoff; Britta Lassmann

doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2017.09.025

Planning an innovation marathon at an infectious disease conference with results from the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance 2016 Hackathon

Int J Infect Dis. 2017 Dec:65:93-97. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2017.09.025. Epub 2017 Oct 7.

Authors

John W Ramatowski¹, Christopher Xiang Lee², Aikaterini Mantzavino², João Ribas³, Winter Guerra⁴, Nicholas D Preston⁵, Eva Schernhammer⁶, Lawrence C Madoff⁷, Britta Lassmann¹

Affiliations

¹ International Society for Infectious Diseases, Brookline, MA, USA.
² MIT Hacking Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ MIT Hacking Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ MIT Hacking Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Epidemico, Inc., Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁷ International Society for Infectious Diseases, Brookline, MA, USA; Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.

Abstract

A hackathon is best described as an 'innovation marathon'. Derived from the words 'hacking' and 'marathon', it brings together multidisciplinary teams to collaborate intensely over a short period of time to define a problem, devise a solution, and design a working prototype. International scientific meetings are conducive to successful hackathons, providing an audience of expert professionals who describe challenges and ensure the proposed solutions address end-user needs. Collaborations with local organizations and academic centers are crucial to attracting complementary specialties such as IT advisors, engineers, and entrepreneurs to develop sustainable projects. The core process of first identifying and deconstructing a problem followed by solution iteration is applicable to challenges at workplaces around the world. Ultimately, this model can be used to drive innovation and catalyze change in the global health community. The planning, execution, and outcomes of a hackathon event organized in conjunction with the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance (IMED 2016) are described in this article. Physicians, public health practitioners, veterinarians, IT professionals, engineers, and entrepreneurs came together for 2days to develop solutions at the intersection of emerging infectious diseases and climate change. Projects that resulted from the IMED 2016 Hackathon included environmental impact assessment software for humanitarian organization relief efforts; enhanced communication tools to prevent disease outbreaks; a participatory mobile application to speed the elimination of rabies in Indonesia; integrated disease surveillance platforms; and an improved search function for infectious disease outbreak reports in the ProMED-mail network.

Keywords: Emerging infectious diseases; Hackathon; Infectious diseases; Innovation; Interdisciplinary; Medical meeting; Public health.

MeSH terms

Academies and Institutes
Climate Change
Communicable Diseases, Emerging / epidemiology*
Communicable Diseases, Emerging / therapy*
Disease Outbreaks*
Global Health
Humans
Information Systems / organization & administration
Information Systems / standards
Interdisciplinary Communication
Public Health
Software Design