Teamup is collaborating with the Corporate Coalition for Viral Hepatitis Elimination, SensusDx, and Ferozsons Laboratories Limited to host the first-ever Hepatitis C eradication hackathon.
The hackathon intends to bring together innovators, health hackers, entrepreneurs, and medical specialists in order to identify ideas that will help Pakistan contain the spread of the disease.
Pakistan has the world’s second highest prevalence of HCV.
Around 11 million individuals in the country are living with Hep C, and the illness claims an average of 64 lives everyday.
While the disease is generally treatable, lack of knowledge and late diagnosis contribute to the country’s high transmission and fatality rates.
The Corporate Coalition for Viral Hepatitis Elimination was founded in 2019 to increase awareness, education, and treatment of Hepatitis C among coalition employees, their families, and the broader Pakistani community. Around 18 governmental and private sector institutions, employing more than 160k people, are members of the group.
The Corporate Coalition teamed with Teamup – an incubation and acceleration platform that has been operating the National Incubation Center in Islamabad since 2016 with partners Jazz and Ignite – to host the National Hepatitis C Hackathon.
Teamup has extensive experience organising hackathons and innovation challenges for a variety of development and corporate sector organisations, and has worked with over 200 startups over the last five years, assisting them with marketing, investment, legal, and product development, among other things.
Programmers, healthcare experts, data analysts, and entrepreneurs are invited to apply for the Hackathon under the following themes:
Prevention
- Effective news dissemination, particularly in the country’s remote areas
- Developing cost-effective strategies to reduce transmission rates
- Developing ideas for implementing safe injection practises
Detection
- Digital tools for tracking the screening and treatment process
- Digital technologies for identifying high-risk groups
- Detection and containment of HCV epidemics
- Developing tools for assessing the prevalence of screening, treatment, and cure in the general population
Management
- Developing instruments for enhanced health management, including the distribution of health money in the most efficient manner possible
- Creating financially viable models for hepatitis population screening
- Creating dashboards for disease management
- Developing rural population-specific telehealth tools
Selected applicants will be asked to participate in a two-day hackathon during which they will pitch their ideas to a panel of industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and investors. The challenge’s winners will get monetary awards and the opportunity to collaborate with industry experts to expand their solution and make a genuine impact in the health business.
If you are the following:
an entrepreneur; a student seeking an undergraduate or graduate degree in health, science, computer science, design, engineering, or information technology; a health professional or data analyst;
and have an idea that could help stop the spread of the dangerous Hepatitis C virus, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The application deadline is July 11th, 2021.
