The Future of Health Hackathon, hosted by HerCode and sponsored by SOPHiA GENETICS, convened talent at ETH Zurich from May 8-10 to address pressing problems in healthcare. Students, researchers and industry professionals shared space and ideas across two venues, pursuing solutions that range from algorithmic tools to translational workflows. The weekend reinforced HerCode‘s mission to empower women and underrepresented talent in technology and innovation while giving participants practical exposure to the realities of building health-focused projects. That combination of mission and practice shaped a focused environment for learning, collaboration and measurable output.
Friday evening set an informed tone with panels hosted at the elegant Universitätsspital Balgrist, followed by an intensive build phase in the maker-friendly rooms of ETH Zurich PBLabs. The schedule blended structured knowledge-sharing with unstructured creative time, so teams could alternate between expert feedback and concentrated work. Attendees found that alternating perspectives—academic, clinical, investment and entrepreneurial—helped them reframe problems and prioritize user needs. Throughout the three days, the event atmosphere was marked by curiosity, deliberate experimentation and an emphasis on practical, deployable concepts rather than abstract prototypes.
Opening conversations and keynote perspectives
The weekend began with panel discussions that explored scaling health startups, building platform-oriented care solutions, and the role of hackathons in driving both innovation and inclusion. Speakers represented healthcare, venture capital, biotech and artificial intelligence, offering complementary perspectives on product-market fit, regulatory navigation, and team formation. Panelists debated why companies invest in community events and how those initiatives feed longer-term pipelines of talent and ideas. These early conversations framed the weekend as both a talent development exercise and a rapid R&D sprint intended to surface workable concepts that could evolve after the event.
Opening remarks included a keynote by Abhi Verma, the CTO, who emphasized a human-centered approach to solving clinical problems. Verma argued that technical rigor must be paired with empathy for clinicians and patients to produce solutions that are both usable and ethically sound. His talk spotlighted stories of small design shifts that improved clinical workflows, underscoring how empathy-driven product decisions can accelerate adoption. The keynote helped orient teams toward outcomes that matter in practice—reducing clinician burden, improving diagnostic clarity, and respecting patient contexts.
Hands-on building at PBLabs
Saturday transformed conversation into tangible work as teams from institutions like ETH Zurich, EPFL, Oxford and others tackled challenges across genomics, protein design, and AI applications in medicine. Mentors and industry sponsors circulated to provide domain expertise, technical troubleshooting and strategic feedback. The day emphasized cross-disciplinary collaboration: computational students partnered with biomedical peers and designers to shape solutions that balanced algorithmic performance with clinician usability. This multi-perspective approach helped teams move beyond proof-of-concept demos to think about deployment paths and validation requirements for healthcare contexts.
Mentorship, user scenarios and realistic constraints
Members of the sponsor Tech team—Antonio Ridi, Jesus Garcia and Shubham Nayyar—led a practical session simulating the daily workflow of pathologists. By sharing concrete pain points and routine constraints, they enabled participants to ground their technical choices in real work patterns. This kind of scenario-driven mentoring encouraged teams to prioritize features that address clinician pain rather than chasing purely technical novelty. The emphasis on realistic constraints also surfaced discussions about data access, integration with laboratory systems and the importance of explainability for clinical decision support.
Final pitches, results and community impact
On Sunday, teams delivered final presentations after less than 48 hours of concentrated effort. Judges evaluated projects on dimensions like innovation, technical implementation and potential impact. Beyond scoring, the event facilitated networking between students and industry stakeholders, creating a pipeline for collaboration beyond the competition itself. Many participants described the value of rapid iteration under expert scrutiny: teams made ambitious decisions quickly, learned from mentors, and refined their messaging to communicate clinical value effectively. The collective experience left attendees with new contacts, clearer next steps and renewed momentum to continue work after the hackathon.
Winners and acknowledgements
Congratulations went to the track winners, Gene Hackers—Ilaria Nissotti Revel, Tuna Özdemir, Doğa Menteşe and Farrah Gedd—for notable teamwork and creative problem solving. The organizers also recognized a strong cohort of teams including GENEius, GENiXX, GeneZ, HelixeFlow, Alleles in Wonderland, Sickuence and Kairos. A final thanks acknowledged HerCode, SOPHiA GENETICS and every mentor and participant who brought empathy, technical skill and human perspective to the challenge. The event demonstrated that when diverse talent, clinical insight and industry support converge, the next wave of healthcare solutions is more thoughtful, viable and equitable.
