3Q: Hacking Ebola health care
Bryan Ranger, a third-year doctoral student in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, was the student lead for MIT’s participation in the weekend event Stop Ebola Hackathon (Dec. 13-14). The event was sponsored by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health, MIT Hacking Medicine, and other organizations. It drew more than 100 participants, who heard from front-line medical workers about their experiences dealing with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and then spent the weekend in teams attempting to devise ways of addressing the hardships and issues of working against a deadly disease under difficult conditions. MIT News asked Ranger to describe the organization and the outcome of the weekend hackathon. Q. What is the group MIT Hacking Medicine, and what was the idea of this weekend’s event? A. MIT Hacking Medicine is an organization on campus that consists of students as well as other members of the greater...