Students from Six Countries Gather in Hong Kong to Co-Develop “Innovation for Crowded Hospitals” at the 2019 DreamCatchers MedTech Hackathon

(Hong Kong – 29 June 2019) – Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) jointly announced that the 2019 DreamCatchers MedTech Hackathon Hong Kong was successfully concluded today, culminating with an exciting and inspiring final pitching competition. Themed as “Innovation for Crowded Hospitals”, this year’s event rallied 45 participants from Hong Kong, the United States, South Africa, Korea, Thailand and Malaysia working together to develop innovations and solutions for easing congestion in hospitals. The team flu.ID was crowned champion for the pitching competition.

In its fourth consecutive year, the MedTech Hackathon kick-started on 24 June 2019 and over six days, the programme fostered knowledge exchange between students and professionals from different fields of study. The participants - mainly undergraduate and graduate students from various disciplines such as Medicine, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Engineering, Bioinformatics, and Design - formed nine teams to design and develop their solutions. Each team featured a member from Stanford University and HKU Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine respectively.

Along the way, the young talent received guidance from 36 professional business and technical mentors, who offered valuable advice on a variety of topics to help their ideas become commercially viable, such as business models, prototyping skills and intellectual property protection. They also made a visit to Queen Mary Hospital, where they got to shadow their clinical mentors and identified issues and challenges they face in addressing patients’ overwhelming needs.

The innovation “UVify” from the team flu.ID, targeted to leverage UV-C light to automate the sanitization of stethoscopes for medical practitioners, gained positive comments from panel judges and became the eventual winner. The championship also won flu.ID the entrance ticket to the Elevator Pitch Competition (EPiC) 2019 in the upcoming November, an international tech startup challenge annually organised by HKSTP.

Professor Cesar Wong, Director, Biomedical Technology Cluster, HKSTP, said, “HKSTP has always believed in cultivating a fertile ground where ideas can come together and solutions can be co-created to overcome challenges faced by society. It is such a warm sight to see these young minds working together with undue passion and capabilities. We hope the Hackathon can inspire these students to further develop and persevere in the area of healthcare innovation, which can deliver benefits to the community. While biomedical and healthcare technologies is one of our fastest growing clusters at Hong Kong Science Park, may this spirit of collaborations among technopreneurs, academia and industry players continue to strengthen our ecosystem and make Hong Kong the leading hub for biomedical and healthcare technologies.”

Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), HKU, also shared, “HKU is delighted to host the Fourth DreamCatchers MedTech Hackathon in collaboration with HKSTP. An international programme bringing students from Stanford and other global universities to our campus, the 2019 theme of “Innovation for Crowded Hospitals” requires that participants adopt an interdisciplinary approach in seeking solutions. We are confident that the Hackathon will be transformational for our students, providing them with significant practical knowledge and experience for their later careers."