MIT Grand Hack 2023 FAQs

A Hackathon is an event in which people with different backgrounds and expertise form teams, collaborate within a limited time frame, and focus on a specific problem or idea in healthcare to come up with innovative, disruptive ideas and solutions. By bringing together diverse minds alike in their interest for solving healthcare’s biggest challenges, problems can be diagnosed from multiple different perspectives. Watch this video from last year’s GrandHack to feel the passion of MIT Healthcare Grandhack here!

MIT Hacking Medicine is ecstatic to bring THE health hackathon of all health hackathons to you! We’re hard at work to make this year’s #GrandHack23 a wonderful experience. Interested in innovating for healthcare’s toughest pain points? This is the weekend to meet, ideate, and hack with hundreds of like-minded entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, and healthcare professionals. Come hack in this year’s 3 healthcare tracks with us!

The application for participating at the MIT Grand Hack is available here! Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Upon acceptance, we will route you to an eventbrite to RSVP and confirm your participation.

The Boston Grand Hack runs from Friday 4/21 through 5pm Sunday, 4/23 with a opening kickoff for selected attendees on Thursday.  

Yes! Participating in the Grand Hack is free but everyone is required to apply and be accepted due to a limited number of spots.

A track is an area of focus for healthcare innovation. There are 4 tracks at the Grand Hack. Applicants get admitted into a track, participants form teams with other people in their track, and ultimately get judged by a panel of experts in that track. Even though your project may fit into more than one theme, you can only give a final presentation in one track. The 4 tracks are very diverse and there is something for everyone.

The application will ask you for your track preferences.  Track assignments will be sent out closer to the start of the MIT Grand Hack. Participants will form teams with other people within their track and get judged by a panel of experts in that area of healthcare. Even though your project may fit into more than one theme, you can only give a final presentation in one track. 

No, unfortunately we do not allow participants to switch tracks in order to maintain an even distribution of experts and participants across the event.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday March 1, 2023 @11:59 am ET. However, admissions are sent out on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to get your application in as early as possible.

We review applications regularly as they come in. However, given the large volume of applications, it may take 2-3 weeks after your application submission for us to get back to you.

Please check your spam folder, and add this email to your safe senders list: grandhack@mit.edu

All participants will require an internet-connected device to be able to access the virtual hacking resources. We recommend using a laptop, but you could also bring a tablet or a smartphone. Typically hack participants have just used their own computers and tablet/smartphone devices to play with, but use whatever you think you will need! If you have resources at home (arduinos, circuit boards, other rapid prototyping materials) that you think will be useful for your project, you are welcome to use them.

Yes, meals will be provided! All meals during the hackathon will be covered from Friday evening to Sunday lunch.  We want you to be able to focus on innovating with your team, so don’t worry about bringing food! That being said, you are still welcome to purchase your own food in the Kendall Square area, as long as it fits within your team’s schedule.

A little bit of both. On Friday night, participants will have a chance to pitch problems. After hearing all of the pitches, you will have a chance to mingle, talk to people whose problems you found compelling (and/or talk to people who found your problem compelling) and form teams. You can join a team around someone else’s pitch or form a team around something you pitched.

Participants are expected to come ready to participate – you can either pitch a “pain point” for 60 seconds or join a team once teams begin forming. We ask that the pitches are kept to describing problems, not solutions.

In the spirit of the hackathon, we ask that participants come in with an open mind to meeting new people and listening to other people’s ideas. Our methodology starts with the problem, not ‘idea-solution’.  Out of fairness to all participants, we ask that projects worked on over the weekend have not been extensively worked on prior to the hackathon. Please do not come to recruit for your startup.  Instead, think about the theme and challenge questions and what could be specific problems within that area that are interesting.

The event will be at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Exact locations and check-in locations on campus will be provided in the Eventbrite.

For any other questions about the application process, please email grandhack@mit.edu