Saudi Arabia organizes world's largest health hackathon

More than 1,000 young Saudi hackers - comprising clinicians, engineers, scientists, designers and entrepreneurs - participated in the world's largest health hackathon held in Riyadh on Thursday.

The three-day hackathon, organized by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) with support from Badir Program for Technology Incubators and Accelerators, and in collaboration with MIT Hacking Medicine, saw 1,000 hackers compete in 10 different healthcare challenges to advance the design of biomedical technologies towards meeting a target of over 20 biotech startups. The winners were announced at the end of the competition.

"Aligned with the Saudi Ministry of Health's Model of Care, the healthcare challenges, ranging from - blockchain and AI for health, cancer innovation track, and assistive technology and ageing - are aimed to energise and connect the best talents across the health ecosystem in the health and technology sectors to solve the healthcare’s biggest challenges and teach healthcare entrepreneurship and digital strategies to scale medicine in the Kingdom," said Dr. Anas Alfaris, Vice President for Research Institutes at KACST during his opening speech at the hackathon.

Healthcare has been identified as one of the primary focus areas under the Saudi Vision 2030 and National Transformation Program 2020 in order to enhance the quality of healthcare services and facilities in the country.

Since its inception in 2011, MIT Hacking Medicine has facilitated nearly 150 hackathons across over 30 countries. Teams coming out of these events have successfully joined local accelerators, raising over $175 million in investment funding, and partnering with healthcare institutions or companies towards piloting their solutions.