Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 9:00 am
We are so excited to announce Toronto’s 4th Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK.org) on June 1 – 3, 2012.
Random Hacks of Kindness is a global community of innovators focused on using their skills to develop practical solutions for social good, in a hackathon/ apps challenge.
RHoK Toronto is part of a Canadian movement together with cities Vancouver, Montreal and Hamilton. Hosted by the Centre for Social Innovation, RHoK Toronto is a collaborative effort of commons11 and grateful for support from Gamechangers, Bento Miso, Wave Accounting, the Wireless Internet Partnership (WIP), Torstar and Freshbooks. The event will host approximately 60 people to problem-solve for benefactors such as Water Voices and other national and international non-profits.
Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 7:41 am
Last week I attended the Idea Jam Night for Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) here in Toronto. The event was held in preparation of our upcoming hackathon on June 2nd and 3rd. In a hackathon, subject matter experts submit problems they are facing in their field of expertise where there is potential for technological solutions. Over the course of a weekend, they are grouped with interested developers to work on building a working prototype of the proposed solution. I am happy to be a part of the organizing committee for this hackathon and even happier that one of the problems presented was healthcare-related. The idea was submitted by Leanne Tran who conducts radiology research in Toronto.
The problem:
Approximately 80% of maternal deaths globally are due to obstrectic complications such as haemorrhage, sepsis, etc. 99% of those deaths are in developing countries, and most of them are highly preventable with the right obstetric care. (Chuni, 2008). Taking Nepal as an example, obstructed labour is the second highest leading cause of maternal deaths. Often these soon-to-be mothers do not have access to specialized care and don’t discover potential complications such as feto-pelvic disproportion (when the size of the fetus’ head is larger than the pelvic) until it’s too late. The problem as outlined by Leanne was two-fold 1) lack of specialized training in operating ultrasound devices, as the accuracy and quality of ultrasound scanning is highly operator-dependent and 2) lack of access to radiologists and OBGYNs to interpret those scans.
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