In an effort to keep ideas flowing from students at the nation's top academic institutions, Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Care Co.'s (JJDCC) Digital Solutions Team has sponsored the Jan. 22 PennApps XIII Hackathon at Penn State University.
Run by students, this year's event saw about 1,200 participants from 133 colleges, 31 states and 13 countries compete.
"It’s part of our R&D effort to stimulate innovation by tapping into top academic institutions and their on-campus innovation efforts," Johnson & Johnson officials said. "Hackathons provide an opportunity for our team members to gain exposure to new ideas, creative thinking from young minds and lead us to think about our toughest challenges in new ways. In the process, our team of engineers also gets to build critical mentoring skills as they help the students understand more about diabetes and the technologies we use to build digital solutions for managing it."
Johnson & Johnson's team asked students to use OneTouch Reveal (OTR) Application Programming Interface (API) to develop an app for patients with diabetes; to use data warehouse attributes to develop a creative predictive algorithm; and to create a digital app to improve the quality of life of a patient with diabetes.
"In all, 23 amazing teams submitted hacks to meet the J&J challenges," Johnson & Johnson officials said. "Over the course of less than 48 hours from start to finish, these teams conceived ideas, developed working mobile apps, web apps and android watch apps, and crafted creative ways to pitch their creations back to us."
The ideas from the Hackathon are being assessed by Johnson & Johnson scientists to see if they can be applied to the development of current or new products.
