University of New Mexico departments on main and north campus are joining forces to create solutions in the health care industry.
The inaugural Health Hackathon at The University of New Mexico will be held May 18 to 20 at the Domenici Center for Health Sciences Education. A wide variety of specialists will be participating, including clinicians, engineers, entrepreneurs, programmers, scientists and students. The faculty of the winning teams will be awarded grants from the Clinical and Translational Science Center of up to $10,000 to help bring their ideas to life.
“We are proud to be partnering with UNM Health Sciences on this new and unique event,” said Christos Christodoulou, Jim and Ellen King Dean of Engineering and Computing at UNM. “It is a great opportunity to showcase our strengths in the areas of engineering and computer science while making important connections across campus with those in the medical sciences. We hope as a School to do much more of this kind of collaboration in the future.”
The event, hosted by the UNM Clinical and Translational Science Center, is sponsored by UNM Health Sciences, the School of Engineering, the College of Nursing and the College of Pharmacy. It was created to stimulate innovation in health care by promoting collaborations that could result in new and unique research prototyping and development that could help in treating, curing or preventing diseases, said organizer Christina Salas and an assistant professor in the Department of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation.
The event is still open for applications. Participants need no technical or coding expertise, nor do they need to have a pre-existing idea before the event. Organizers say this is a good place to pick up new skills and concepts from those in other disciplines, and mentors will be on hand to assist.
For more information, contact Carla Cordova at cncordova@salud.unm.edu or 505-272-8553.