The first Health Hackathon organized by Hospital da Luz Learning Health , in collaboration with the National Association of Biomedical Engineering Students (ANEEB), which took place in the weekend of September 21-22, counted with the participation of 50 students from universities all over the country, from courses in the area of engineering, medicine, nursing and informatics. “ Hackathon ” (to hack + marathon) is the designation given to a method of work originally used by startups, that gathers programmers, designers and other professionals associated with software development , in real work marathons, with the purpose of creating specific solutions for one or more problems. In the meantime, it started to be used in other fields as a method of multidisciplinary brainstorming in the spirit of innovation. In this Health Hackathon by Hospital da Luz Learning Health, students were asked to answer a challenge consisting in the development, in 24 hours, of disruptive solutions for a real need of Grupo Luz Saúde . For that purpose, they attended a few mentoring sessions with collaborators of this group, that assisted them in finding the solution for the proposed challenge. The works took place in a space made available by Hospital da Luz Clínica de Odivelas. In the end, these were some of the opinions from participants: “It’s opportunities like these that make us learn how to deal with our future professional life”; “It was excellent! The teamwork, the pitch, and all the involvement in the event are added value for the future”.
