Medical Students, Designers and Developers to Change the Face of Medicine at Global Hackathon

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Apr 21, 2017, 06:59 ET

LONDON, April 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Elsevier and the Association for Medical Education in Europe holding a 48-hour hackathon to build creative solutions for the challenges of medical education

Elsevier, the information analytics company specializing in science and health, in partnership with the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), have organized a 48-hour Medical Education Hackathon on August 25, ahead of AMEE's annual conference in Helsinki.

Building on the success of the 2015 hackathon in which Elsevier was a headline sponsor, the event will bring medical students from across the world together with designers and developers to build creative solutions to solve challenges in medical education today.

"Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and this event provides us with an opportunity to explore how technology can support and further medical education instead of surpassing it," said Jan Herzhoff, Managing Director, Education, Elsevier.

A global competition to select up to 16 medical students began April 10 with interested students applying through Elsevier Hacks by sharing the challenge/problem they would like to tackle. The top respondents will then go to a second round, in which they will create a video that demonstrates how the challenge/problem impacts their day-to-day study of medicine.

"We want to empower medical students to think beyond the challenges they face in medical education to the solutions that can transform the way medical educators teach and the way they learn," Herzhoff said.

A team made up of international medical educators from AMEE and Elsevier representatives covering Business, Technology and Product will take part in an immersive experiment and will share their findings during the main AMEE conference on Monday, August 29.

"Hackathons foster creativity and innovation. They push participants to exhausting limits but working within such a tight time frame enables them to create prototype solutions that would not exist outside such an intense ecosystem," said Eric Brown, Senior Director, Software Engineering, Elsevier. "That the event is taking place in Finland, an epicenter of startups and tech development, is an added bonus. We hope that local developer talent is well represented to ensure the event is a huge success.

The International Federation of Medical Students' Associations also will run a competition to select two medical students from the conference's student taskforce to take part in the hackathon as AMEE sponsored representatives.

"The feeling of working creatively with enthusiastic individuals from different backgrounds to solve important issues in medical education is priceless," said Professor Trudie Roberts, President, AMEE.

Read more on Elsevier Hacks.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics company that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com