Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon

16 Jun Celebrating Healthcare – Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon

Posted at 12:16h in Events by Maren Lesche

Vision Health Pioneers Incubator has always tried to push the boundaries of innovation in healthcare. For the last few years we have strived to be the place to be for exciting young startups in the healthcare world. With an alumni of 13 teams and currently 6 teams in the incubator, we are confident that projects come to us because they know that during our 10 month program they can grow and flourish.

However a short while ago, we pondered what about all the individuals? Those who don’t have a team but have an inspiring solution to bring into the healthcare world or hold skills that could benefit a healthcare focused startup. How could they get involved and benefit from our coaching, mentoring, free co-working space and scholarship funding? Well, they could join us via a hackathon… so presenting the story of the first Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon!

Firstly, just in case, what is a hackathon? A hackathon is an event that brings together experts and creates a collaborative environment for solving a certain problem. In our hackathon we invited teams to bring in their own ideas as well as tackle challenges from our partners. We were thrilled to have over 75 individuals from over 30 different locations enter our Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon, and submitted over 20 different projects.

They were all competing for the main prize which was entry into our last cohort for 2022-23 and those who scored well and were eligible, were invited to join our Vision Health Pioneers Incubator and will begin their adventure with us in July 2022!

The challenges set by our partners included ‘ReadyWrap becomes smart’ by Lohmann & Rauscher. This included the chance to develop ideas or a prototype that supports the measurement of pressure, temperature etc. for an existing product. So ideas could come in the form of live progress tracking and increasing treatment motivation via gamification. Teams could also get creative with a challenge around healthcare in the metaverse, that was inspired by Bayer. This included exploring Web 3.0 and NFTs in healthcare and creating something exciting in the now and future healthcare world. Last but not least, Janssen asked teams to explore Oncology Guidelines in the future. This challenges focused on the question of how can we (digitally) increase the usage of Medical Guidelines for the treatment of cancer patients? We thank all our partners for their support.

Teams spent the hackathon week, which took place between May 16 and May 20, attending workshops from expert coaches. Subjects included ‘Basics on Business Modelling & Evaluation in Healthcare’, delivered by Michael Hübner, Projektmanager at Sana Digital and ‘Data & Medical Regulatory’ led by Johannes Starlinger, Cross-Disciplinary Digital Health Consultant & Developer.

They were also able to connect with a range of expert mentors:

Aline Noizet, Founder of Digital Health Connect
Ella Maria Kadas, CEO at Nocturne
Przemek Grzywa, Co-Founder, Revolve Healthcare
Gaelle Waltinger, CEO, Tilda
Marjorie Gomez, Co-Founder, AcceleRed
Karolin Rühlmann, CEO, Karolin Ruehlmann Consulting
Agathe Acchiardo, Managing Director, Think Next
Axel Stellbrink, Founder, Stellbrink & Partner

Offline kick off - Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon Teams worked online together or joined us at our co-working space Unicorn to hack on their projects. We also got together during the week at Ahoy Berlin for some beers and pizzas and they got to meet some of our mentors and our startups teams. Plus we held a fascinating interview with Martina Viduka, Co-Founder at Advosense – one of our alumni from our first ever cohort!

The final challenge for our teams was to pitch live in front of a jury of experts who evaluated their healthcare solutions. The grand finale was live-streamed around the world and viewers could ask also questions to the teams via Slido.

The top jury featured:

Jesus del Valle, Head of Bayer Pharma Digital Disruption
Joscha Hofferbert, Co-Founder, Vision Health Pioneers Incubator
Anette Ströh, Project Manager, Charité
Martin Müller, Senior Associate, Phillips Ventures
Maren Lesche, Founder, Startup Colors
Tim Brügge, Digital Portfolio Manager, Janssen
Silvia Bez, Digital Product Manager, Bayer

Jury at Vision Health Pioneers Hackathon May 2022

Top jury, L to R; Tim Brügge, Anette Ströh, Maren Lesche, Martin Müller, Jesus del Valle, Joscha Hofferbert, Silvia Bez (moderator Ben V Butler)

Clinoption pitching at Pitch Day 2022

10 teams pitched on the final day and put their all into their presentations. With moderation from the incubator’s Marketing and Communication Manager, Ben V Butler the teams pitched at FreiFläche Berlin or online. The experienced jury scored the teams in a blockchain system in TAIKAI, the hackathon platform. They especially looked for how solid the team seemed, the concrete need, the potential, the pitch itself, the overall feasibility and the differentiation (the novelty of their solution compared to the existing competitors).

Well done to all the participants and teams who took part in the hackathon. After much consideration and debate from the jury, this was the final leaderboard for the hackathon! Teams were then invited to join the incubator, pending eligibility: