The Tata group, which comprises over 100 companies spread across six continents, recently organised its first ‘Tata Social Enterprise Challenge Hackathon’ on healthcare at the BMS College of Engineering at Bengaluru, India.

Aiming to stop lifestyle issues through technology, the two-day “hackathon” was a joint initiative from the Tata group and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.

Winning 10,000INR, the winner of the challenge was Solert DevOps, who developed a smart posture assessment-monitoring device, designed for patients with bedsores.

Students, developers, designers and innovators showed other ideas, such as a device that detects heart attacks at its earliest, and a wearable device that creates alerts for recognised diabetic ketoacidosis.

‘Amazing solutions for lifestyle diseases’

Gaurav Kapoor, head of IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, said to India Education Diary: “It was a motley of students, doctors, designers and coders which helped bring in a varied perspective and their synergies threw up amazing solutions for some lifestyle diseases.”

Atul Agrawal, vice president for corporate affairs at Tata Services, added to India Education Diary: “A new dimension has been added to the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge with the introduction of the hackathon this year. We are pleased with the response and thank all the jury members, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park and IbHubs for the efforts, and wish all the very best to the participants for continuing to seek innovative solutions.”

Written by Leah Alger