BIO Deutschland hosts Hackathon – Biotechs Meet Digital Health Start-ups

Team work at the hackathon © BIO Deutschland

Around 150 experts from biotech, pharma and IT firms, as well as researchers, got together at the Biotechs Meets Digital Health Start-ups event, which took place in Berlin on 13 July, to discuss exciting ideas, develop new solutions and get new projects off the ground.

The hackathon was co-organised by Bayer Pharma AG and Grants4Apps, along with Berlin Partner, BIO Deutschland, DexLeChem, Health-IT-Talk (BVMI, KH-IT, SIBB), imatics and Medlanes.

BIO Deutschland members Alacris, BioVariance and Certara, among others, took the opportunity to give short presentations. These were followed by eleven pitches, most of which were given spontaneously, on interdisciplinary projects from the fields of e-health, biotechnology, cancer screening, natural sciences research and environmental protection.  Following a short break, the participants had a chance to work in teams to define the projects more precisely and present them again to the audience.

The teams now have until 10 August to put their projects in writing and submit them to the competition. A prize of €20,000 will be awarded to the winner.

Further information on the event and the schedule for the collaborative project phase is available at www.meetup.com/STEM4health-Berlin/events/221992406/.

The term “hackathon” is borrowed from the world of IT. The classic hackathons of the 1990s tended to take place over several days, and were events where developers met programmers.