2nd Annual MoHacks HealthQuest Hackathon powered by the Mischa Weisz Foundation
On Saturday, October 26, Mohawk College welcomed 66 high school students from across the Greater Hamilton and Toronto Area to Fennell Campus for the 2nd Annual MoHacks HealthQuest Hackathon powered by the Mischa Weisz Foundation.
Teams of 1-4 individuals had 12 hours to brainstorm, design, and develop prototypes addressing one of two challenges:
- Design a tool or app that helps patients stay informed after a hospital visit.
- Design a tool or app which helps manage social media use, while connecting people to services to support mental health, chronic illness, or addiction.
MoHacks HealthQuest’s goal is to inspire and mobilize students to pursue careers and educational pathways in healthcare and technology. The event provides a platform for participants to tackle pressing challenges in health and wellness by creating practical tech solutions, like mobile apps, software, or hardware projects. MoHacks HealthQuest serves as a launchpad for students and budding technologists to gain real-world experience, foster collaboration, and contribute to the future of healthcare through technology.
"Events like this are so important to students, it gives them a lot of exposure to health care. Most of them have really been consumers up until this point,” says Brendan Kwolek, Chief Information & Digital Officer of Halton Healthcare. “Now they're really getting a sense of what it means to be involved to help solve some of health care's toughest problems. And with the way technology is going, all of us are so focused on digital health transformation, it's a great opportunity to bring a new lens, a new vision, and really to eliminate all the limits that we see in terms of all the baggage that we carry with us."
Judges from Halton Healthcare evaluated the final projects, with prizes awarded for each challenge, as well as the Edge Factor Hackiest Hacker Award for the greatest technical sophistication.
The winners of the first design challenge created a robotic rabbit companion which would provide reminders to outpatients when they need to take their medicine and would even dispense that medicine from the robot itself! In addition, the robot would use AI to say encouraging things and connect the end user to additional out-patient services.
The winners of the second design challenge created a candy-crush style app that helps people with phone addiction become more mindful of their phone usage and could connect them with medical professionals. Daily and weekly goals helped motivate people to cut down their screen time, and the app also had users write a time-capsule message to their future self to receive once they’ve made it through the program.
The winners of the Edge Factor Hackiest Hacker award were PrimeCare who took on the first design challenge and wrote an application to help remind patients to take their medicine. Their solution also incorporated accessibility features, AI-based support and video tutorials to assist patients.
“Digital health programs provide essential tools to support clinical decision-making, enhance healthcare services, and ultimately lead to better health outcomes for everyone,” says Reece Morgan, Executive Director of the IEC Hamilton. “The MoHacks hackathon continues to be an excellent opportunity to address the needs of this growing sector, inspiring and preparing students for the future.”
The Early College Initiatives team and the Computer Science and Information Technology department welcome support and ideas from Mohawk College staff and faculty to support this event in the future.
Want to learn more? Email dualcredit@mohawkcollege.ca or connect with Kevin Browne at kevin.browne3@mohawkcollege.ca.