Engaged designers at HackEpilepsy

HackEpilepsy was a very special experience: a whole hackathon around one topic, with abundance of input from experts (both patients and doctors) and a shared drive so strong that you could feel the walls tremble while everyone was hacking away (almost).

The fact that it took place in the most amazing facilities of friendly pharma company UCB headquarters is not to be overlooked. They even had healthy food on the first day :D and a gym, free beds, as many energy bars and fruit and coffee one could wish for, great feedback and incredibly prompt assistance from all the organizers.

I joined a team to develop the brilliant project of artist Frederike Manders "Interruptions", an affordable 3D experience that can make healthy people understand what having epilepsy feel like. An earlier version of the project was presented here. As a diehard Imax fan, I found the simple technology of Google Cardboard absolutely fascinating: by using cheap software (in our case, we used Unity) you would get a totally credible 3D experience without much of the unpleasant kinetic effects of large 3D screens, with the downside that you get to move your body around to follow the images, with the possible downfall of looking like an idiot to unknowing passers-by (not that that thought ever stopped any true innovator).

Anyway, thanks to everyone, it was great fun and very instructive.

(below: a pharmacist showing the new device to a hepilepsy patient.)

#hackathon #ehealth #epilepsy #googlecardboard