SYNLAB is Europe's leading provider of healthcare laboratory diagnostics services and it currently operates in 36 countries and 4 continents.

This event follows a prestigious call for proposals, which saw SYNLAB's project as one of the 23 selected proposals from across Europe, published by the EIT Health. EIT Health was established in 2015, as a ‘knowledge and innovation community’ (KIC) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The EIT is made up of various KICs who each focus on a different sector, or area, of innovation – in our case, that is health and aging. The idea behind the EIT KICs is that innovation flourishes best when the right people are brought together to share expertise.

i-Days promote health innovation among university students through dozens of one-day and two-day programmes held in academic institutions around Europe. Students from all academic areas receive an introduction to practical health innovation tools and compete in teams to tackle real-life health challenges posed by EIT Health, local organisations, private corporations or start-ups. The winning team of each i-Day will attend the Winners’ Event, a final competition that unites students from around Europe.

The conduct of the hackathon includes three phases spanning as many days.

During the first day, students from all academic backgrounds will receive an introduction to the predominant evolutionary trends in digital innovation as well as practical examples of health innovation tools that have revolutionized the healthcare sector in recent years.

Once heterogeneous and multi-functional teams are created, applicants will be expected to propose innovative solutions in response to the emerging needs of the healthcare ecosystem in terms of healthcare data exploitation and value creation.

Within the event theme (“The culture of extracting value from data”), applicants will have the opportunity to try their hand at one of the two challenges selected by SYNLAB and eitHealth:

    IMPROVING LIFESTYLES AND FOSTERING PREVENTION BY LEVERAGING MULTIPLE DATABASES  

Imagine how to improve people's lifestyles and well-being, how to prevent the onset of diseases and disorders, how to diagnose diseases in a  timely   manner and prescribe the best treatment pathways, and how to streamline the patient experience within healthcare facilities (hospitals, clinics, analytical laboratories) and in the outpatient setting; all this leveraging multiple datasets and information (including non-health care databases).

    IMPROVING AND DIGITALISING ACCESSIBILITY TO THE HEALTH SYSTEM THROUGH THE USE OF DATA 

 Propose your idea on how to facilitate the collection, analysis, and interpretation of health informations through the use of new technologies (e.g., Immersive Experience, Data Analytics, AI, Machine Learning, etc.). Try to think about how accessibility to the health system can be improved through the use of data to enable more digital and technologically advanced experiences.

Throughout the creative process, each team will be supported by dedicated design thinking tutors and mentors so that it is able to concretely develop its idea and submit it by the deadline: 09.59 PM of the second day.

On the third day, therefore, after the speeches of institutional representatives, each proposal will be evaluated by a board composed of prominent senior professionals. As the event is organised at a international level, the winning team of each national i-Day will attend the Winners’ Event, a final competition that unites and links students from around Europe.

As stated in the rules, each member of the winning team will win a prize of 500 euros to finance the trip to the country where the final event will be held.

In addition, for candidates who prove to be particularly deserving in the eyes of the participating companies, regardless of whether they are part of the winning team or not, the possibility of being selected for possible Interships or company theses may arise.

In this sense, the purpose of the challenge aims to promote the culture of innovation in the Healthcare ecosystem and provide a valuable training opportunity for the bright students involved.

Moreover, the event will represent a significant pratical training not only on idea incubation approches, but also on design thinking techniques.