The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) have posted a challenge “Go Viral to Improve Health: IOM-NAE Health Data Collegiate Challenge” to spur undergraduate and graduate students to transform health data into effective, innovative new apps to engage people in various communities to promote action to improve health and healthcare. The challenge calls on students pursuing degrees in engineering, computer science, and health disciplines to work in interdisciplinary teams to transform health data into new mobile apps, online tools or games, or other innovative products that can improve health at the community level.
Winning teams will have the chance to share their innovative technologies at the Health Data Initiative’s next forum — an annual gathering of software engineers, developers, and health leaders — in June. The challenge can be found at http://health2challenge.org/blog/go-viral/ In addition, you might check out the data and tools on Data.gov at http://catalog.data.gov/dataset