Hacking Health: Norwich's first ever Health Hackathon

What is Hacking Health?

Hacking Health is Norwich's first ever health hackathon, a collaborative event designed to bring the region’s leading health and technology professionals together, in order to generate novel solutions to some of the most pressing problems faced by the sector.

Don't worry. It isn't as scary as it sounds.

In reality, it will be a fun way to quickly come up with innovative solutions. It's not about 'coding' (unless you really want to), but about having a great time, learning something new and meeting some brilliant people.

You DO NOT need any computer skills to participate. We welcome anyone with an interest digital health: healthcare professionals, patients and their relatives, representatives from charities, developers, designers, marketers, and entrepreneurs – in fact, ANYONE who cares about health and social care, or just wants to help out,op or even see what we’re doing.

How will it work?

Running from 8am to 8pm, the day starts with local health practitioners presenting some of their key challenges. Anyone with an idea for a project pitches it to the other attendees, after which everyone splits up into groups to get working.

Groups form quite organically, and some people join several groups rather than committing to just one project. You may choose to join a particular group because you were inspired by the pitch, or because you have skills you think might be useful, or for any reason at all. Sometimes groups end up merging depending on how things go. It's all very freeform as you might have gathered.

Towards the end of the day, each group gives a short presentation about what they have achieved, and we invite a panel of judges to watch these and decide how to award various prizes.

Who should attend?

- If you work in any kind of health environment, come along – we want to make a difference.
– If you're a patient or relative of a patient, come along – we need your voice to be heard.
- If you’re a coder, developer, designer, technologist, or entrepreneur, come along – we want your help to make a difference.
- If you’re worried about not being technical enough, come along.

How can I support Hacking Health?

The event is free to attend in order to encourage a wide range of attendees. However, we need to pay for venue hire, food to keep everyone energised, as well as tea and coffee. We also hope to offer prizes for the best projects as decided by a panel of invited judges.

If you or your organisation can help us at all then we’d love to hear from you. You may be able to offer to judge; perhaps your company would be willing to become a sponsor; or perhaps you could offer us cash, books or anything else to give away as prizes. Whatever you can do for us, please get in touch with us on Twitter or Facebook.

Who is behind Hacking Health?

The event is being organised by postgraduate entrepreneurship students at the University of East Anglia, as part of an Entrepreneurship in Global Health and Social Care module.