In an era of Connectedness, we still face rising tides of loneliness, need for authentic connection through our life course and the challenge of preserving vitality. Clinicians, Carers, Consumers and Policymakers are navigating their way through the maze of technology changes + challenges, but need help sorting signal from noise, fact from fiction, progression from stasis and decay.
Our Hackathon experience at the University of Newcastle will give early career exposure and cross-disciplinary design experiences to ICT, Design, Business and Health students, informed and shaped by experienced clinicians, consumers and carers on contemporary healthcare issues. Their challenge, over 54hrs, will be to design + develop 1st generation concepts and technical prototypes to address a healthcare problem with targeted use of contemporary technology. In doing so, our event attendees will develop a strong working understanding of the challenges, constraints and possibilities in an intensive crucible of health+tech curiosity.
Let's work together to see what can be cooked up with the right ingredients of our 5CFocus: Care, Clinical Skills+Experience, Connectedness, Creativity and Cutting Edge technology. We'll be asking attendees to deliver against evidence based regional health priorities, using the local Population Health footprint of their area, evident in http://www.myhealthycommunities.gov.au Our event winners will be eligible for a range of cash and in-kind incentives from local companies and Sydney technology incubators.
Our attendees will have a chance to use the complete suite of collaboration solutions from Atlassian, courtesy of Laughing Mind, our regional Atlassian Expert. With their recent Initial Public Offer on the NASDAQ in 2015 seeing a valuation of >$5bAUD (http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/10/atlassian-closes-up-32-valuing-the-company-at-5-8b/), Atlassian serve as a great example of what can be achieved with Australian technology skills.
We are also negotiating with a range of Wearable technology vendors to see if attendees can come to grips with emerging new interfaces, recognising the therapeutic importance of wearable computing as assistive technology eg http://developerblog.myo.com/meet-the-man-with-a-myo-controlled-robotic-arm/