UCL HackMed 2020

Over 100 applicants were accepted and guided throughout the weekend to produce innovative medical ideas, addressing problems ranging from maintenance of health records to lifestyle apps for personalised mental wellbeing.

This year, MedTech UCL partnered with the AI-based health service, Babylon Health, the talent investor, Entrepreneur First and the founders network Founders of the Future, to deliver the event. Mentors from each sponsoring organisation shared their expertise with each group individually as they provided 1-to-1 mentoring, to guide each team in maximising the strengths of their product and discuss their shortcomings and areas for improvement.
 
The first place prize included free access passes to the Babylon Health app worth over £120, an exclusive tour of the Entrepreneur First and Founders of the Future offices, and £30 Amazon gift cards for all winning team members.

First place was given to the team behind SmartSleep; an app developed to improve environmental factors to encourage a better night’s sleep. The app consists of an AI-based sleep coach that can learn your personal circadian cycle. The system can also connect to smart home devices that, for example, control your home’s temperature or brightness of light bulbs, enables adjustments of key sleep components required for a good night’s sleep. Other systems developed included early sepsis diagnosis using wearable biosensors and a convolutional neural network, as well as a system using Natural Language Processing to automate note taking in GP consultations and through Bayesian-based methods, creating differential suggestions for patient diagnosis in real-time. 
 
Over the course of the weekend, attendees successfully took an idea from conception to reality, and were afforded exclusive access to industry experts as part of the development process. UCL HackMed is the largest event of its kind held at UCL, and the 2020 event provided a fantastic platform for interdisciplinary collaboration between students and working professionals, from doctors and scientists to graphic designers, engineers and many others.