Hacking for Health: Health 2.0 Developer Challenge

Following on their success last year, Health 2.0 is hosting code-a-thons in three cities as part of their Developer Challenge: San Francisco, CA on January 29th, Washington, D.C. on February 12th, and Boston, MA on February 19th.

The day will bring together developers, designers, researchers, care providers, patients, and anyone else interested in improving healthcare by building new applications and tools.

Here's a sampling of some of the open challenges that have been submitted by public and private organization (you can see the full list at the challenge site):

• WWHI / VAi2 Veterans Health Wireless Innovation Challenge. Issued by the West Wireless Health Institute and VAi2, the challenge is to design a wireless device or application targeting a problem specific to the Department of Veterans Affairs regarding care for our veteran population.
• Enabling Community Use of Data for Cancer Prevention and Control. Issued by the National Cancer Institute, the challenge is to use data available through the NCI to prototype web and/or mobile communication technology applications to enable communities use of population data for cancer prevention and control.
• Food Find: Putting Healthy Food Choices in the Path of Everyday Life. Sponsored by theAmerican Heart Association, the challenge is to design applications to help communities put healthy food choices in the path of everyday life.

To support this great cause, O'Reilly's Maker Media division will be co-sponsoring the Boston event by bringing some open source hardware (Arduinos, sensors, etc), experts, and maybe even a Kinect or two to the teams participating in the Veterans Health Wireless Innovation Challenge. (More details to come as we get closer to the event.)