MIT are rallying the innovation community to develop solutions towards the most pressing issues related to the COVID-19 crisis in Africa. We want to channel and unlock untapped potential into positive and meaningful efforts to rapidly create and implement solutions that truly address the pressing unmet needs and problems of today. Our goal is for teams to design and build local solutions to these now global problems.

Challenge Prompts:

1. FLATTENING THE CURVE: How to prevent disease transmission and protect vulnerable populations from effects of COVID-19?

2. SUPPORTING OUR HEALTH SYSTEMS: How to strengthen the health systems and health facilities that may face staff, supplies, and resource shortages?

Agenda:

• Friday, May 1: Event kickoff and team formation
• Saturday, May 2: Teams hone down on the problems, generate solutions, including proof of concepts, prototypes, and preliminary vision for execution
• Sunday, May 3: Teams submit final presentation. Winners announced + next steps

The Africa Takes on COVID-19 Challenge event is the third in a series of virtual hackathons. Over the course of two days, multi-disciplinary teams will collaborate to develop innovative solutions that can help address the COVID-19 crisis. We are focused on connecting teams with the tools and resources needed to develop mature solutions that can be implemented by our partners. After the Challenge, selected teams will have the opportunity to bring their solutions to life with the support of our partners.  

The next event is May 1-3, 2020. In this 48-hour virtual event, we will help tackle the most critical unmet needs caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in Africa. 

This is a virtual event. Teams will work together throughout the two-day event using tools such as Zoom, Google Drive, WhatsApp, and/or Slack.