DementiaHack2015: Solving the challenges of living with dementia

Few people underestimate the scale of the challenge presented by dementia. The latest numbers are so large and terrifying that they start to lose meaning: 44 million people living with dementia worldwide, double this amount by 2030; a societal cost of £26 billion in England, treble this by 2030; 25 % of hospital beds in England occupied by people with dementia. The need to act has never been greater, which is why the UK launched the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia in 2012 and updated it in 2015.

As part of this Challenge, the UK’s science diplomacy network was asked to consider how it could contribute through international collaborations in science and innovation. Here in Toronto, our partners noted that disease-modifying therapies would likely not appear for a decade or more, and that we might be able to use modern technology to improve quality of life in a much shorter timeframe. We ended up partnering with tech non-profit HackerNest to create DementiaHack, the world’s first dementia-themed hackathon. We wrote about the event on this blog (principally here and here). Here’s the two-minute summary:

We had such good outcomes from last year’s event (interesting applications, new collaborations with the UK, huge interest from the dementia community) that we decided to do it again this year, only bigger and better-resourced. HackerNest have been working on it since the spring, and brought Facebook Canada on board as headline sponsor. Come November (in Toronto) and January (in New York City), we are going to convene around 300 computer scientists, developers and medical professionals to hack together technological solutions for the challenges of living with dementia. The challenges are many and varied, but we think that at least some of them are addressable through modern technology. If we manage to make someone’s life better then we will have succeeded.

The winners of each hackathon will be encouraged to take their creation forward as a start-up company, and the prizing will be themed accordingly. This will not be an event where a team receives a cash prize for vapourware; the winners will be going to the UK on a business development trip and should be looking to put their product into actual use. We will be holding an ideation event around six weeks before the actual hackathon so that teams can talk to people working in the field and plan something that will actually be useful to people living with, caring for someone with or researching dementia.

For the past few weeks, HackerNest has been feverishly canvassing opinion from experts in dementia care and research about the types of challenges that a hackathon might take on. Once this process is complete, we will be opening up registration to participants and volunteers. Keep an eye on this website for the latest information: http://hackernest.com/dementiahack/