HackMentalHealth, the world’s largest hackathon for mental health innovation, will take place at Yale on Feb. 22-24.
The organizers include Sofia Noori, MD, MPH, a second-year resident in the Yale Department of Psychiatry, and Eric Lin, MD, a third-year psychiatry resident. Noori and Lin also co-lead the residency's psychiatry and technology interest group, which hosted a focus group Jan. 30 to develop the challenge prompts around which hackathon participants will build their ideas.
This year, the HackMentalHealth challenges will center around building technologies for suicide intervention, substance use disorder, and the ethical use of data in mental healthcare.
“The field of mental health is overdue for new solutions. I believe that technology could help us solve some of our biggest problems, including issues with access, engagement and timely intervention,” Noori said.
“It’s going to be a great moment of technical and cultural cross-pollination between people of vastly different backgrounds and skill sets,” Lin said.
The field of mental health is overdue for new solutions. I believe that technology could help us solve some of our biggest problems, including issues with access, engagement and timely intervention.
Sofia Noori, MD, MPH, PGY-2, Yale Department of Psychiatry
The event is projected to attract over 300 attendees, with approximately 60 teams building challenge solutions.
In addition to Noori and Lin, the event will be judged and mentored by many Yale psychiatry faculty and residents. The judging panel featured Noori and Yale psychiatrists Vinod Srihari, MD, and Seth Feuerstein, MD, JD. Hackathon advisors include Michael Sernyak, MD, and the CMHC Patient Advisory Board. Volunteer clinical mentors will also be on-site to guide teams with clinical insights as they build their ideas, and include Mario Fahed, MD; Rajiv Radhakrishnan, MBBS, MD; Kunmi Sobowale, MD; and Azim Munivar, MD.
HackMentalHealth will take place at the Yale School of Medicine’s Cafe Med. No technology or engineering experience is required to participate, and most participants do not have pre-determined teams or ideas before attending the hackathon.
To sign up, please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hack-mental-health-yale-2019-tickets-53112185978. For those who are interested in becoming a volunteer clinical mentor, please email sofia.noori@yale.edu.