Hacking Health is a movement born in Montreal in 2012. Seven years later, the organization counts 53 chapters over five continents and has headquarters at the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal). Our mission: bring together experts inside and outside the healthcare sector. In Montreal and all other cities, we catalyze and empower the ecosystems to build innovative, concrete solutions to healthcare challenges.
At first, our mission seems unrealizable. Healthcare institutions are rigid, administered in silos and health is regulated by complex and impenetrable authorities. Many times a month, we accomplish the impossible. In +15 countries, we break down silos and bring innovation to these institutions and their patients.
In Montreal and all over the world, Hacking Health volunteers organize energizing and entertaining events allowing unleashed creativity and collaboration. We bring together patients, healthcare professionals, physicians, technologists, designers, entrepreneurs, decisionmakers, business leaders, politicians, researchers, administrators, and governments to work collaboratively and solve tangible issues. Partners from different domains support our actions globally and locally as we share the same values and vision of better healthcare for all.
Hacking Health volunteers organize 3-day to 3-month co-creation marathons better known as health hackathons or design challenges. During these events, multidisciplinary teams are set up and handed with a challenge: create a solution to a specific health problem. To build our community, our volunteers also set up cafes, discussions, meetups, and other networking events.
Hacking Health is a not-for-profit organization and until now, we have organized +120 health-focused hackathons with +15,500 participants. These events lead to concrete realizations like:
- Smartcane, a white cane to assist the blind and visually impaired which includes vibration-based GPS navigation, ultrasonic proximity sensors, and artificial intelligence to identify objects and faces
- Immune Check, a web platform that tracks an individual’s vaccination information
- Croquette, a virtual cat which helps kids to keep contact with a loved one who is at the hospital
- jvpQuant, an accurate, noninvasive measurement technique of central venous pressure
- and over 1,700 other innovative projects in healthcare
