In the beginning of March, Sahlgrenska Science Park, GoCo Health Innovation City, AstraZeneca, and other members of Health Innovation West invited participants, students, researchers, tech enthusiasts, life science experts, entrepreneurs, and others to a femtech innovation hackathon, a hackaton focused on reducing the gender health gap and advancing women’s health.
Initiators of the hackaton were Sara Sanchez-Heredero Martínez, Sandra Carrasco Limeros, and Martin Priessner, all co-workers at AstraZeneca.
Read more: West Sweden’s life science community launches HackHERHealth
Winners announced
The hackathon took place April 12-14 at GoCo and Sahlgrenska Science Park and was concluded with an awards ceremony at Sahlgrenska Science Park on April 19.
More than 100 participants were able to hack about 30 different solutions to the gender gap between men and women.
“Now there is a framework, there is awareness, and there is a real willingness to collaborate within the ecosystem in Gothenburg and beyond. And so many ideas have a really good foundation to be developed, so we hope that some of the ideas will eventually make an impact and improve the current situation,” says Sara Sanchez-Heredero Martínez.
HerShield
In first place came team HerShield, Bruno Martens, Andrea Mialdea Molina and Anjali Yadav, and their solution to identify and prevent domestic violence.
“Our solution is a mobile app. It records audio from your microphone to classify domestic abuse, using an algorithm to identify both physical and mental abuse. This way, we can help the victims,” says Bruno Martens.
“We’re planning the first step, which is to get to know the experts in the field and start setting up the network. We also plan to talk to Swedish authorities on how we can further fund this,” adds Anjali Yadav.
Andrea Mialdea Molina, Global Graduate, Rodrigo de Diego Porras, Data Scientist, Bruno Martnens, Global Graduate, and Anjali Yadav, Sustainable Energy Engineer and Global Graduate Engineer, Volvo Cars. Photo: Anton Kozyr
Klöver
In second place came team Klöver, Johanna Granström and Sofia Rothman, and their solution to advance accessibility and precision of diagnosis for neurodivergent girls.
Women in clinical trials
Third place came Carlotta Hillger, Hanna Kalesse and Henrietta Sundberg and their solution to increase the number of women in clinical trials. Researchers can’t find enough women for clinical trials, and that’s a main reason for the gender health gap. So, the team asked “where are all the women that researchers want to have in their clinical trials?” We are here. But how do you find us? This is where the “TRIAL ME” app comes into play. Whenever the app finds a suitable clinical trial match for you, you get a pop up notification. To reward participants for their contribution to research, they earn points for each clinical trial they participate in. Those points can then be exchanged for discounts or free products at pharmacies, from health insurance, or maybe even at the gym.
HackHERHealth
HackHERHealth is co-hosted by Health Innovation West, GoCo Health Innovation City and Sahlgrenska Science Park. It is funded by AstraZeneca and supported by Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Chalmers University of Technology, Microsoft, DAYA, AFRY, BioVentureHub, Girls in Tech Nordics, AI Sweden, Business Region Göteborg AB, Women in AI Poland, International House Gothenburg, Together Tech, Eventornado, Pristine Agency, Gothenburg Artificial Intelligence Alliance, Moonai (Techstars ’23).
Featured photo of all the winners: Anton Kozyr / Sahlgrenska Science Park
