http://hackingmedicine.mit.edu/ 

MIT Hacking Medicine’s mission is to ignite health innovation around the world. A big way we do this is through health hackathons. Our health hackathons bring together doctors, engineers, designers, and business people to tackle real-world healthcare problems through design thinking. 

MIT HackMed has touched over 3000 people’s lives through our hackathons, including many people who were inspired to transition into healthcare careers or continue their hackathon projects as startups (collectively, these HackMed startups have raised over $240M from top VCs).

During my year as Co-Director (2014-2015):  

  • Recruited and led a 18-person team
  • Organized 15 health hackathons in across 5 states and 5 countries (USA, Qatar, Uganda, Spain, and India)
  • Conducted two interactive panel sessions at SXSW 2015 (Austin, TX)
  • Organized Grand Hack event with 450 participants from 19 states & 8 countries, one of largest in world
  • Raised over $120,000 not including hackathon costs paid directly by partners
  • Partners: Clinton Foundation, GE, Samsung, athenahealth, Joslin Diabetes Center, MGH, and more
  • Gave a TEDxBrussels talk to invite the world to join our mission: https://youtu.be/8-wo5YnYr-g

Of all the things my Co-Director and I accomplished during our tenure, we are most proud of the team we built. When we inherited the MIT HackMed organization, there was 1 other student team member and no money in the bank. We grew it into a 15-person team of dedicated students who would come every single week to a 2-3 hour team meeting and countless hours of individual work outside those meetings. We built a team that was versatile – each member could run any part of a hackathon – committed, and fun – there was energy and excitement any time we got together. I am extremely proud and honored to have been part of this team. My Co-Director and I are also proud of our successful succession. We left the new directors tens of thousands of dollars in the bank and the group is extremely strong. This year they’ve already done 12 hackathons and their services are widely in demand around the world. They have a full 3-day workshop at SXSW “Hacking Medicine House” and an even bigger and better Grand Hack in the works.

 

My TEDxBrussels talk: