No, the event is free for students at partner institutions!

This event is for students at schools who have a partnership or existing relationship with FIBRE. However, we do have a small handful of openings for students from other schools who would like to participate. If you're interested, you can email fibre@uhn.ca to request to be put on the stand-by list. You will be notified the first week of May if we can offer you a space. If your school is not listed, reach out to fibre@uhn.ca to see how your school might become a FIBRE partner.

Nope! You can sign up as an individual or with a partner. Teams will be assembled by the Hackathon organizers to ensure there is a mix of students from different disciplines within a team. If you sign up with a partner, both of you will remain together on a team.

This event is all about creating opportunities to work with students from different disciplines, different schools, and different countries to share new perspectives and find innovative solutions together. To achieve this, you may only register with one other person (or by yourself). If you sign up with someone you will stay together on a team, but teams (of up to 5 students) will be formed by the event organizers to ensure a multidisciplinary mix of students to enrich your team's innovation potential.

This event is all about creating opportunities to work with students from different disciplines, different schools, and different countries to share new perspectives and find innovative solutions together. To achieve this, you may only register with one other person (or by yourself). If you sign up with someone you will stay together on a team, but teams (of up to 5 students) will be formed by the event organizers to ensure a multidisciplinary mix of students to enrich your team's innovation potential.

Teams will be released on Thursday, May 12. You will be sent an email with your teammates names and emails. We encourage you to reach out and connect with your team and get to know one another before the hacking begins.

No. All submissions must be new work and must not have been created, tested, or submitted as coursework or other work prior to the event. Teams must work together starting on Friday May 13 to come up with a concept that addresses the Challenge Area. Once hacking begins at 10am EDT/7:30PM IST, teams will have 35 hours to decide on and develop their idea and submit for judging.

The Challenge Area is intentionally very broadly defined. Pressure ulcers can occur in a variety of situations, and affect many different people (patients, families/caregivers, healthcare workers). We want to give you the freedom to choose one area within this topic to address. Your hack must focus on a solution for preventing, monitoring, or treating pressure ulcers. You must also incorporate textile-based technologies in some way - how you do this is up to you!

Right now we have a $1000 CAD first place cash prize, $600 CAD second place cash prize, and $300 CAD third place cash prize. We also have some small gift card prizes for our trivia challenges during the event. We are working to expand our prizes and will update with any changes!

No. Since the event is virtual, students will be joining from different places. This means that not everyone will have equal access to facilities to build their concepts, or experience using the tools needed to bring their ideas to life. This year, team submissions for this event are all conceptual - you don't have to make a physical sample. However, submissions must be fully detailed with supporting specification document(s) and a marketing plan that justifies the concept for the Challenge Area. You must explain the technology/technologies in your concept, how it works, the materials you'd use, technical illustrations, etc. Your specifications and justifications will be evaluated by judges to determine the feasibility of the idea and thoroughness of the submission. Winning hacks will be innovative, detailed, meet a need within the Challenge Area, provide a clear justification and market analysis for the concept, and will convince judges that the idea is achievable. Think big, but make sure you can connect the dots between your concept and reality to clearly explain how you'll achieve your idea.

Sure! If you have access to tools and materials to make a sample, you are most welcome to. But it is not essential to do this, and submissions with physical prototypes will not automatically receive a higher score by judges. You only have 35 hours of hacking - use them wisely!

Each team must prepare a video pitch to summarize their hack in 60-seconds. Videos may not exceed this time limit. Videos will include a quick summary of important information including a description of the team's concept, explanation of how it is relevant to the Challenge Area, description of the solution (and why we should care), who will benefit from it, etc. Teams will also need to develop a brand identity and marketing plan. Further details will be provided in the Hacker Package that will be sent to all student registrants the first week of May.

Mentors from multiple disciplines will be available during scheduled time blocks on Friday May 13 and Saturday May 14. These blocks of time will be finalized and provided in the Hacker Package. During these times, teams can reach out to speak to Mentors using the event Slack channel (registrants will receive an invite the week of May 9), or by approaching available Mentors in the Gather Town event space. Mentors may also drop in on teams in Gather Town to say hello and offer guidance. Some Mentors may even stick around longer than their scheduled time blocks!

UHN Patient Partners are volunteers who have personally experienced pressure ulcers and will be available during scheduled time blocks on Saturday, May 14 to provide insight and feedback on your team's concept. These blocks of time will be finalized and provided in the Hacker Package. During these times, teams will join a scheduled meeting with a Patient Partner to present their rough hack concept, learn about the Patient Partner's personal experience, and ask for their feedback on their hack.

The Hackathon will be hosted on Gather Town. Teams will meet with Mentors, Patient Partners, and attend workshops and mini-events on Gather Town. Slack will be used as the primary mode of communication and announcements. Teams will upload their submissions to Devpost. Links to event platforms will be sent to registrants the first week of May.

Students own the IP of their submissions.

Faculty from partner schools (any discipline) can sign up to be a Mentor for free. Industry sponsors are invited to be a Mentor as part of different sponsorship package benefits.

As a Mentor you will sign up for a scheduled time block. During this time, you will join the Gather Town event space online and chat with students about their hacks. You may announce your availability on the event Slack channel and state your area of focus (e.g. fashion design, biomedical engineering, marketing). Students may reach out to you directly through Slack or in Gather Town. Sharing your insight about your area of expertise will help the students think about their hack ideas from different perspectives. We ask that you commit to a full Mentorship time block if possible, but we appreciate any amount of time that you can share with us!

Mentors can sign up to be Judges, and industry experts are also invited to be Judges. Some sponsorship package benefits include an invitation to participate as a Judge.

Judging will occur between 9pm EDT Sat May 14 - 9am EDT Sun May 15 / 6:30am IST - 6:30pm IST Sun May 15. Judges are advised to set aside 2-3 hours to judge all submissions (you do not need to be available the entire judging window). Judges will review team submissions on Devpost, including the team's 60-second video pitch and supporting concept document containing specifications and full details. Judges do not have to evaluate criteria they do not have expertise in. All judging must be completed by 9am EDT / 6:30pm IST Sun May 15.