It is our pleasure to announce that the Dynamic Brain Circuits (DBC) in Health and Disease Research Excellence Cluster, BC Brain Wellness Program, and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH) are collaborating to host Brain-Tech 2021: Idea Generation and Hackathon for Brain Wellness.

Date: Friday, August 6th and 13th
Time: 12:30 – 1:30 PM, August 6th, 8:00 AM – 12:00 AM, August 13th
Location: Zoom

This virtual event brings together students and researchers from diverse fields to brainstorm and prototype novel applications to support brain wellness. These applications may either improve brain wellness directly through the encouragement of healthy lifestyles or indirectly by contributing to the study and dissemination of brain wellness concepts. Researchers and students studying healthcare, neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering are invited to contribute their unique expertise to this event. It is anticipated that winning teams will develop the concept for an app, software tool, or program that will aid the mission of the BC Brain Wellness Program.

Projects will be judged based on the novelty, creativity, impact, usability, and polish of their idea/prototype. Project submissions will include a pitch video and accompanying data and/or code that supports the idea. Winning teams will be rewarded with one $100 Amazon.ca gift card for each member (up to 8 members/group).  All uploads of completed projects will be to Open Science Framework.

Teams can focus on addressing issues within brain health from the category of their choice*:

• Education: discovering new ways to educate the public about brain wellness

• Program delivery: developing new approaches to how we design brain wellness programs

• Research: improving our ability to study brain wellness

*More details on each category to come closer to date of the first event

Registration

Register HERE and join our SLACK GROUP where teams can be formed in advance of the hackathon. Deadline to register is July 30th 11:59pm.

Schedule

Part 1: Idea Generator
Aug. 6th 2021 , 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM

A short session where the challenges and problems for each track will be presented and teams can begin interacting and developing their project ideas with the assistance of mentors from the BC Brain Wellness Program and the Dynamic Brain Circuits in Health and Disease Cluster.

Part 2: Hackathon
Aug 13th 2021  8:00 AM – 12:00 AM

A daylong event where teams will work to develop their project idea into a functional prototype and/or concept. Project pitches will be submitted via < 5 min videos along with supporting data and code.

Goals

Although we encourage teams to create a functional prototype of their idea, the creation of a ready to use application is not the major goal of this event. Instead, the goal of this event is to develop innovative and novel ways to address brain wellness and (in the process) encourage inter-disciplinary collaboration. The most promising ideas may continue to be developed with the support of the BC Brain Wellness Program and the Dynamic Brain Circuits in Health and Disease Cluster.