EHFG Hackathon 2019

EHFG Hackathon 2019 & Winner

In October 2019, the European Health Forum Gastein hosted its second hackathon on vaccine hesitancy, jointly organised with EIT Health and with the organisational support of PROIDEA. The hackathon nurtures competition built upon collaboration and aims for an acquisition of knowledge, which is expected to bring forward new ideas.

The application call was open to anyone interested in developing innovative solutions for health-related problems. The 35 selected participants, coming from 20 European countries and with different professional backgrounds, were divided into seven teams and given 48 hours to develop an innovative solution to vaccine hesitancy. Three shortlisted project presentations were put to a vote via a digital audience survey: with 47 percent of the audience vote, the project VAXOn won the EHFG 2019 Hackathon.

Congratulations to the winners and all participating teams!

Find further information in the EHFG 2019 Hackathon Report. 

The Finalists

Project 1: Vax-ins

The "Vax-ins" team worked on the "No voice left unheard initiative" — a digital solution to empower "vaccine-hesitant" parents to make an informed decision about vaccinating their children that could be launched during the European Immunization Week (EIW, 20.-26. April 2020) led by WHO/Europe.

Project 2: #immYOUnise

Team "#immYOUnise" came up with a digital reminder system for health authorities, insurance companies, and the industry partners, which targets the unconcerned and the hesitant population to increase vaccination coverage, using electronic vaccination records together with an automated personalised reminder system. The system provides service for healthcare professionals to reach out to patients by sending reminders and updates. 

Project 3: VAXOn

Team "VAXOn" initiated "AVA — advanced vax analytics" using big data analytics to identify anti-vax groups and provide reliable analysis of their activities for governments and NGOs to help develop timely and effective vaccine campaigns and in so doing decrease vaccine hesitancy.