A Multi-city Hack-A-Thon To Tackle Healthcare For Urban Poor

The Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Global Health will hold simultaneous hack-a-thons across five cities in India. On March 11-12th 2017, hundreds of medtech innovators will gather for CAMTech-X: Jugaadathon to address one of the country’s most pressing challenges: expanding access to healthcare for the urban poor.

The distributed concept allows CAMTech to take its model of medtech hack-a-thons and expand its reach and impact across India. The event, organized in partnership with Lattice Innovations, will be India’s largest healthcare hack-a-thon to spur disruptive innovation.

CAMTech is a global network of clinical, academic, corporate, and implementation partners whose mission is to build entrepreneurial capacity and accelerate medical technology innovation through an open innovation platform. During CAMTech-X: Jugaadathon, innovators from across India (as well as other geographies including Africa and the U.S.) will convene for 48 hours at five local hack-a-thon sites in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Manipal, and Delhi. During the event, teams – through cross-disciplinary collaboration, mentorship, and award incentives — will turn ideas into breakthrough innovations that can alleviate critical health pain points faced by India’s urban poor.

In early January, CAMTech and Lattice selected five CAMTech-X Ambassadors and held a two-day training session in New Delhi to prepare them for leading individual hack-a-thons in each of the five cities.

“The Ambassador trainings were a great way to share key hack-a-thon planning methods and strategies with passionate members of our community in the medtech space,” said Dr. Kris Olson, Director at CAMTech. “This new model allows us to amplify what we have found to be effective processes across India to catalyze focused med-tech innovation. We have been able to leverage our experience in the field, learn from our partners, and work together at a larger scale to ensure others can succeed.”

“Planning for such a large, unique event has taken tremendous preparation and depends on solid experience organizing and leading hack-a-thons", said CAMTech-X Ambassador Nikhil Muppavarapu, Associate at KIIT-TBI, Bhubaneswar. “Thanks to CAMTech and Lattice’s expertise and prior success with these events, we are well prepared to hold five simultaneous hack-a-thons across the country.”

Over 95% of this year’s applicants are from India, reflecting a commitment to the “Make in India” initiative and the event’s focus on product development and innovation in India. The event also marks CAMTech’s 16^th medtech hack-a-thon. Over the course of the two days, participants will work around the clock to pitch healthcare problems, form teams, prototype solutions, and develop business models before presenting their ideas to a panel of judges from the fields of medicine, public health, engineering, and business, reflecting CAMTech’s cross-sector approach to innovation.

“We are very hopeful that CAMTech-X: Jugaadathon will help identify the next wave of disruptive technologies that can increase access to healthcare for India's urban poor,” said Muppavarapu.

The winning teams from each hack-a-thon will receive mentorship from CAMTech and have an opportunity to travel to New Delhi on June 17th, 2017 to present their innovations to investors, corporate partners, healthcare organizations and other stakeholders, who will award two grand prizes. In addition, all CAMTech-X: Jugaadathon teams from the five sites will have an opportunity to apply for a 100-day post-Jugaadathon award, where up to five teams will be selected to travel to New Delhi and receive $250 USD toward their travel to compete in the June 17th finals. The grand prize winner in New Delhi will receive 10 Lakh rupees and six months of incubation support.

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