CMU hackathon to target issues in medicine for kids

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A 24-hour hackathon will be held next month at Carnegie Mellon University in a new twist to solving some of the most troubling problems in getting medical care to kids.

Hundreds of university students, doctors and industry researchers from around the country are expected to participate in the event Oct. 5-6 at CMU’s new Tepper Quad on Forbes Avenue. The top prize will be $5,000, with $3,000 for second place and $1,000 for third place. Children’s Hospital Foundation, the fundraising arm of UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, is the event sponsor.

Hackathons bring together teams of students, entrepreneurs and researchers who work on a compressed time schedule to solve difficult problems for prize money, but the form has not often been used in medicine, according to George Mazariegos, chief of pediatric transplantation at UPMC Children’s in Lawrenceville and co-chair of the event.

The idea is to generate results that could have a big impact on medical treatment.

“I’m new to this, but the industrial community and university community are used to this and we have to bring this to the children who need it,” Dr. Mazariegos said.

In recent years, the University of Pittsburgh has stepped up efforts to commercialize faculty and student research, a push that has been a UPMC mainstay since 1997 when health insurer UPMC Health Plan was created by the