Dri­ving inno­va­tion in health­care with the very first OYS­TER Hack4Health Hackathon in Oulu

As the cur­tain came down on the OYS­TER Hack4Health Hackathon, the moti­va­tion to devel­op inno­v­a­tive health solu­tions con­tin­ues. An inten­sive hackathon week­end in Oulu brought togeth­er diverse par­tic­i­pants, includ­ing stu­dents, health tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ers, entre­pre­neurs, researchers, and health enthu­si­asts, to col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly devel­op new ideas and pro­to­type solu­tions to health­care chal­lenges and improve health­care sys­tems and patient out­comes. The event cul­mi­nat­ed in pitch­ing ideas that pro­vide sol­id ground to devel­op inno­va­tions and rev­o­lu­tionise future health. The win­ning teams were offered the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther devel­op their ideas, for exam­ple, through men­tor­ship and access to the OYS­TER Incu­ba­tor pro­gram.

To hack or not to hack: the impor­tance of health hackathons

As health­care sys­tems strive to bal­ance effi­cien­cy, acces­si­bil­i­ty, and qual­i­ty of care, inno­va­tion has become a crit­i­cal need. Health hackathons are emerg­ing as pow­er­ful plat­forms for dri­ving such inno­va­tion by bring­ing togeth­er diverse teams of pro­fes­sion­als ready to share knowl­edge and col­lab­o­rate to solve press­ing health­care chal­lenges. By com­bin­ing the tech­ni­cal knowl­edge of engi­neers with the user-cen­tric focus of design­ers and open-mind­ed­ness of stu­dents, hackathons can lead to ground­break­ing solu­tions that may not have been pos­si­ble in a more tra­di­tion­al set­ting.

A great exam­ple of such an event was the OYS­TER Hack4Health hackathon. Held in Oulu, a dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion hub, the hackathon ben­e­fit­ed from the city’s thriv­ing health ecosys­tem and skill­ful minds. The event was orga­nized by OYS­TER, hence Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, and Busi­nes­sOulu, with Top­con Health­care, Sijoit­ta­jaPRO, Polar, and 46Elks con­tribut­ing as spon­sors. Between 20 and 22 Sep­tem­ber 2024, thir­ty-three par­tic­i­pants gath­ered at the premis­es of the OYS­TER Incu­ba­tor to work in ten teams on sev­en chal­lenges select­ed out of fif­teen chal­lenges deliv­ered by the hackathon part­ners. The chal­lenges addressed mat­ters relat­ed to dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion of health­care, data inte­gra­tion and man­age­ment, remote patient mon­i­tor­ing, AI-pow­ered diag­nos­tic tools, telemed­i­cine for rur­al areas, and wear­ables, to men­tion just a few. They all required cre­ativ­i­ty, high ener­gy, think­ing out-of-the-box, and close col­lab­o­ra­tion between par­tic­i­pants, who often came from dif­fer­ent back­grounds.

Some par­tic­i­pants, such as Muham­mad Has­san Sohail and Kaisa Salon­pää, were stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu who want­ed to con­nect with like-mind­ed peo­ple, entre­pre­neurs, and pro­fes­sion­als from many fields. Many of them had already acquired busi­ness knowl­edge but lacked cod­ing or health tech­nol­o­gy exper­tise. There­fore, the hackathon was an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to find new con­tacts, upgrade skills, and cre­ate some­thing new.

‘I am from a tech­ni­cal back­ground.  Once I read an arti­cle about AI hav­ing the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise the world. So, I thought that I would like to make an impact using my tech skills and some­how help oth­ers,’ said Muham­mad Has­san Sohail.

‘We do have some expe­ri­ence with appli­ca­tions for health, and we came here to meet like-mind­ed peo­ple, maybe rep­re­sen­ta­tives from com­pa­nies, enhance our net­work groups, and have a good time. I’m not sur­prised by the chal­lenges. These are very hot top­ics in the bio­med­ical com­mu­ni­ty, but I also expect­ed chal­lenges based on solu­tions that peo­ple already have. For exam­ple, appli­ca­tions that could be devel­oped using a phone cam­era or some­thing like that,’ added Bri­ana Boeru, a stu­dent from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Par­tic­i­pants in the hackathon worked all week­end under time pres­sure to brain­storm solu­tions, refine, and pitch their ideas to a pan­el of judges. They received sup­port from men­tors, who helped guide their projects and ensured that the solu­tions were both prac­ti­cal and impact­ful. The best ideas received recog­ni­tion and sup­port for fur­ther devel­op­ment dur­ing an offi­cial award cer­e­mo­ny.

Accord­ing to Eija Hau­ta­la, Senior Lec­tur­er at Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences, the organ­is­ers of the hackathon had sev­er­al goals in mind. One of the goals was to attract many inter­est­ed par­tic­i­pants to the OYS­TER Incu­ba­tor, where they can devel­op inno­va­tions and inspire them for entre­pre­neur­ship.

‘In my opin­ion, the goals were achieved. Per­son­al­ly, I am very sat­is­fied with the results of the hackathon. At first, I won­dered if we would get enough par­tic­i­pants, but we had many reg­is­trants, which is great. The hackathon result­ed in many good ideas with a lot of poten­tial,’ explained Hau­ta­la. 

The mod­er­a­tor of the event, Rus­lan Rusi­nov, CMO at Scale­port AI, high­light­ed the fan­tas­tic spir­it of col­lab­o­ra­tion and a relax­ing atmos­phere dur­ing the event.

‘So many emo­tions. It’s been such a roller coast­er through­out those 48 hours. I tru­ly believe that we are all win­ners in the hackathon. I would like to thank all the men­tors, the jury pan­el, spon­sors, part­ners, the OYS­TER team, and vol­un­teers. We had so many vol­un­teers and this event would­n’t be pos­si­ble with­out their help. We are super grate­ful to every­body involved,’ said Rusi­nov.

The win­ners of the OYS­TER Hack4Health Hackathon in Oulu

Grand Prize: Team ScanAI

Bri­ana Boeru, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

Dat Le, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences

Nas­taran Nafisi, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

Denis-Valentin Sores­cu, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

2nd Prize: Team IHealth

Sameera Gam­age, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

Prabash Rath­nayake, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

Spe­cial Award: Team Round Table

Daniel Ahmetshin, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences

Mak­sim Kalash­nikov, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences

Arkar Myint Myat, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu

Joakim Riis­tanie­mi, Tecin­spire

The win­ners received mon­e­tary rewards, men­tor­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties, and oth­er sup­port for fur­ther devel­op­ing their solu­tions.

‘We are tired after almost three days of cod­ing, but we feel good and hope­ful for the future. We are gonna join the OYS­TER Incu­ba­tor.  We’ll see how far we can take this and if we can turn our idea into busi­ness. Our solu­tion is an app used in pre­ven­tive care. It uses AI mod­els to go through images cap­tured with a phone. It aims to help peo­ple detect symp­toms ear­ly enough,’ con­clud­ed Bri­ana Boeru from the win­ning team, ScanAI.

The OYS­TER Hack4Health Hackathon is behind, but the inno­v­a­tive ideas it gen­er­at­ed can be utilised to devel­op health solu­tions glob­al­ly as the chal­lenges it aimed to solve were not lim­it­ed to one coun­try or region. These solu­tions may apply to health­care providers any­where in the world. It is worth wait­ing for the sec­ond edi­tion of the OYS­TER Hack4Health Hackathon com­ing next year.

Text: Joan­na Sep­pä­nen, Health and Life Sci­ence, Busi­nes­sOulu