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Manipal, October 31:  A hackathon to provide solutions to problems faced by oncologists was held over three days last week at Idea Café in Marena here. Kasturba Medical College (KMC) Research cell and Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Care Center (MCCCC) in collaboration with the Innovation Center of Manipal Academy of Higher Education organizedthe first of its kind of hackathon in the country and the occasion was the first anniversary of MCCCC.

The event, Hacking Cancer brought together undergraduate and postgraduate students from all disciplines of sister institutes of MAHE (KMC Manipal & Mangalore, MCODS Manipal & Mangalore, MCOPS, SOLS and MIT) to be creative and exhibit their innovative talents.

The problem statements like, the need for blood donation, guide for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) patients and requirement of low-cost radiation oncology devices. The participants then had to form a team based on shared interests and work on developing the solution model.

At the conclusion of the problem-solving block, each of the teams presented their solution to a panel of expert judges: Dr. Vedang Murthy, Dr. Mamta Manglani, Dr. Anil Paleri, Dr. Chenappa Patil, Dr. Manish Bhandare and Sandesh Manik at the Idea Café, Marena, Manipal.

The three best teams declared winners were;“ALLBetter”which proposed Tracking and boosting patient compliance by using simple data entry and record system. The team comprised, Arushi Bhura, Fiza Jakhar, Shreyak Sehgal and Rahul Kondaveti all KMC, Mangalore. 

The other team was,“Donate Blood”proposed an idea of creating an application for saving lives and increasing the voluntary blood donation by linking it with social media.The team members; Shreya Joshi KMC Manipal, Disha Jindal KmC Mangalore, Sanskritie Sashikanth KMC Mangalore Reuben Nellissery MIT, Sushant Prabhu MIT.

And the third one was, “Lumi Flex”, which developed an illuminating flexible abdominal retractor with the light source and manually adjusted tip. The team, Shreya Lakshim, Garima Makhija, Namrata Datta (All MCODS Manipa) and Rahul Mendiratta MIT.