Brains Matter: Pathway to InnoVAtion Hackathon Serving Veterans!

As identified in a recent paper by Tanileien + Jaycox, 11-20% of Veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) are living with PTSD during a given year and approximately 22% of all combat wounds in OEF/OIF are brain injuries (compared with 12% in Vietnam). Traumatic Brain Injury has been identified as a “signature injury” of OEF and OIF and the time is now to come together to address new opportunities to support Brain Health with the Veteran population.

 To help bring together innovators from across the country in this arena, VA will host an inaugural Public-Private Partnership (P3) Brain Health Showcase Event with this year’s focus specifically on mild TBI (mTBI) and PTSD). Partnering with private sector, nonprofits, and professional and collegiate sports, the MyVA Strategic Partnerships Team and the VA Center for Innovation hope to promote innovative dialogue among scientists, industry, clinicians, and the patients they serve (Veterans and caregivers).

 To help “prime the pump” for this April event, we will be holding two ‘hackathons’ in Austin + San Francisco. Specifically, we are focused on how to improve access to care for Veterans faced with mTBI and PTSD, along with identifying new forms of diagnostics to help serve Veterans in this arena.

 The event will kick-of with speakers to help define the problem space and identify specific challenges surrounding mTBI and PTSD to solve throughout the weekend. Following the speeches, participants will then “pitch” by presenting different problems or need areas in the mTBI + PTSD space. Participants will then have 36 hours to form teams and build solutions during an intense, non-stop, innovation sprint. Experts and thought leaders will serve mentors, including several VA subject matter experts. + Veterans By the weekend’s end, we hope to have teams create initial demonstrations of their solutions, taking their first steps to developing novel innovations surrounding mTBI + PTS for Veterans. In particular, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of the events will be invited to come present their innovations as part the Innovation Showcase at the April event!