The Story Behind
Advance Health
A random conversation at LaunchBox. A shared frustration. And the question that started everything: why aren't clinicians and coders in the same room?
We received over 200 applications for this event. From medicine, computer science, engineering, neuroscience, business, and beyond. People from completely different walks of life — all united by one thing: the desire to improve healthcare.
That in itself is powerful.
Seeing the Gaps
Patricia is a medical student, currently intercalating in neuroscience. Over years in medicine, she encountered incredible clinicians working under immense pressure — and she also saw gaps. Gaps in workflow. Gaps in communication. Gaps in systems that were never designed with the user in mind.
At the same time, she was increasingly drawn to health tech and med tech — realising that many of the frustrations seen in hospitals are not just medical problems. They are design problems. They are systems problems. They are innovation problems.
But medical students are not trained to code. They are not trained to build apps. They are trained to diagnose and treat. So the question became: how do you bridge that gap? How do you create conversations between people who understand patients deeply and people who know how to build?
Medicine has so many bright minds, and computer science has so many brilliant builders — but why are they not in the same room working on healthcare problems together?
Back in August, this ideathon started as a random conversation. Patricia met Eric during LaunchBox — Trinity's student startup accelerator. She had seen him everywhere: winning hackathons, building projects, flying across Europe for competitions. And she thought: why not just build that room?
A Missed Opportunity
Eric is a student in computer science and neuroscience. He codes. He builds. But he also cares deeply about healthcare systems and patient outcomes. Over the last few years, he participated in and won multiple hackathons across Europe — focused on fintech, crypto, AI infrastructure, developer tools.
Ireland has a vibrant tech scene. Trinity has incredible programming talent. But when he looked around, something was missing.
There were plenty of programming competitions. There were plenty of medical conferences. But there was almost nothing that truly brought both together in a structured, focused way around healthcare.
Ireland is globally recognised for its pharmaceutical industry, for medical research, for healthcare innovation. We are a nation that exports medicine to the world. Yet at a student level, there were no intentional spaces where clinicians and coders could co-create solutions from day one.
This ideathon is our experiment. Our prototype. Our attempt to say: what if we start earlier?
Not about the fanciest tech stack.
Not about the most polished pitch.
It is about three core things.
Understanding the problem deeply.
Especially from the patient and clinician perspective. If you don't understand the real pain point, you will build something beautiful that nobody needs.
Working as a team.
Across disciplines, across backgrounds, across ways of thinking. The best healthcare innovations happen when different perspectives collide — respectfully, creatively, constructively.
Testing your assumptions quickly.
Healthcare is complex. Your first idea will not be perfect. That is okay. The goal is not perfection — it is progress. Make it tangible. Make it real. Make it something that could actually be piloted.
As you build, we ask you to remember
Start with empathy.
If you can clearly describe who you are helping and what pain you are removing, you are already ahead of most solutions in the market.
Aim for impact and feasibility.
A smaller idea that can actually be implemented in a real hospital often beats a giant, futuristic concept that never leaves the slide deck.
Keep users at the centre.
Better outcomes. Safer care. Clearer communication. Less waiting. Less stress. That is the goal — everything else is secondary.
Healthcare needs people who think differently. It needs builders who understand patients. It needs clinicians who understand systems. And most importantly, it needs people willing to collaborate across boundaries.
By being here, you are already part of that shift. Whether you're a first-time innovator or someone who has built before, we hope you leave with new skills, new collaborators, and the confidence that your ideas can genuinely improve lives.