Host
A youth-led technology organisation building events that put students and early-career builders in the same room as the people who work in the field.
MedWaveThe Mediterranean Medical Innovation Hackathon
Clinicians bring the problems they actually face. Engineers, designers and founders build the answers. One weekend, one room, the whole region.
Hosted by
In collaboration with
- Dates
- 5–7 February 2027
- Location
- Venue TBC
- Cost
- Free
- Applications
- TBC
01About
MedWave is a weekend that puts healthcare's problems and healthcare's builders in the same room.
Clinicians, students, engineers, designers and founders from across the Mediterranean come together, put real problems from the front line on the table, form teams around the ones that matter most, and build working answers in a weekend.
It is hosted by Youth Tech Fest in collaboration with MIT Hacking Medicine, whose pain-point-driven method has run healthcare hackathons in more than thirty countries.
You do not need a team. You do not need to write code. You need a problem worth solving, or a skill worth lending to someone else's.
02Mission
Healthcare innovation usually starts in the wrong place — with a technology looking for a problem.
MIT Hacking Medicine inverted that. Their method is pain-point-driven: clinicians and patients surface the friction they actually live with, out loud and in detail, before anyone proposes a solution. Engineers, designers and entrepreneurs then build against those problems rather than around them. It is the difference between a clever demo and something a ward would actually use.
MedWave adds a regional layer. The Mediterranean shares a great deal — ageing populations, seasonal and tourism-driven demand, uneven access between islands, coasts and interiors, health systems under the same pressures on both shores. What it does not share is a room.
The talent is here. It is scattered across a dozen countries, working in isolation on versions of the same problem, with no reason to meet. MedWave exists to give them one.
- 01
Problems before solutions
The weekend opens with clinicians describing real friction from the front line. Nothing gets built until something is worth building.
- 02
Teams that disagree well
A clinician, an engineer, a designer and someone who can price it. Mixed teams find the answer the discipline alone would miss.
- 03
One Mediterranean room
Shared problems, scattered talent. The point of a regional event is that the network outlasts the weekend.
The method has a track record
- Hackathons run
- 200+Hackathons run
- Countries
- 30+Countries
- Startups formed
- 50+Startups formed
- Raised by alumni ventures
- $2.5BRaised by alumni ventures
Figures published by MIT Hacking Medicine (2026). They are MIT Hacking Medicine's record, not MedWave's — MedWave 2027 is a collaborating event, hosted by Youth Tech Fest.
03Who it's for
A hackathon is only as good as the range of people in the room.
You do not need to know how to code. You do not need to arrive with a team.
Both are the normal way to come. The teams that win these weekends are the mixed ones — and they are assembled on the first evening, out of people who walked in alone.
Clinicians and medical students
You know where the system breaks because you work inside it. You bring the problem — and the judgement to tell a real one from an interesting one.
Engineers and developers
Software, hardware, data, ML. You turn a described problem into something that runs by Sunday.
Designers and researchers
In healthcare, the interface is the intervention. You make the thing usable by someone on their twelfth hour of a shift.
Entrepreneurs and business students
Someone has to answer who pays, who adopts, and what happens on Monday. That question decides whether a good idea survives.
04Format
Four moves, in order, across one weekend.
The sequence is deliberate. Nothing is built until a problem has been described by someone who lives with it — which is why the weekend opens with listening rather than pitching.
- 01Friday evening
Pain-point pitches
Clinicians, patients and anyone working inside the system take sixty seconds each to describe a problem they live with. No solutions yet — just the friction, stated plainly.
- 02Friday evening
Team formation
The problems worth pursuing draw people to them. Teams assemble in the room, deliberately mixed. Arriving alone is the normal way to arrive.
- 03Saturday
Build, with mentors
A working day and night of building, with clinicians and technical mentors circulating to pressure-test what you are making while it is still cheap to change.
- 04Sunday
Demo and judging
Every team presents to a judging panel: the problem, what you built, and the evidence that it would survive contact with a real ward.
05Programme
The programme, as it stands today.
None of this is invented to fill the page. Each strand is published the moment it is fixed — and the waitlist hears first.
- Tracks
- Drawn from problems clinicians across the region actually raise, set with our clinical partners.
- TBC
- Schedule
- Pain-point pitches, team formation, a build day with mentors, then demos and judging.
- TBC
- Speakers, mentors and judges
- Clinicians, operators and builders who circulate through the weekend pressure-testing the work.
- TBC
- Prizes
- Confirmed once sponsorship is, so that what we publish is what you actually get.
- TBC
06Sponsors
Put your name in front of the region's next clinical founders.
A weekend like this concentrates an audience that is otherwise very hard to reach: practising clinicians, medical students, engineers and founders from across the Mediterranean, all working on problems in your field, in one room, for two days.
Not yet announced
No sponsors are confirmed yet — this is the ground floor.
The first partners shape the tracks, sit on the judging panel, and are the name every participant associates with the event.
How partnership works
Lead partner
TBC- Naming presence across the event and all participant communications
- A seat on the judging panel
- A challenge track shaped around a problem you care about
- Mentor places for your team across the weekend
- First access to participants and their work
Partner
TBC- Logo across the venue, site and participant communications
- Mentor places across the weekend
- An on-site presence during team formation
- Access to participants and their work
Supporter
TBC- Logo on the site and in the venue
- A mentor place
- An invitation to the closing demos
07Partners
Who is behind it.
In collaboration with
MIT Hacking Medicine has run healthcare hackathons around the world since 2011, built on a simple method: start from the pain points clinicians actually face, then build against them.
MedWave 2027 is hosted by Youth Tech Fest, in collaboration with MIT Hacking Medicine. It is not an MIT event and is not organised, endorsed or administered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
08FAQ
Questions people actually ask.
Do I need to be able to code?
No. Roughly half of what a team needs over the weekend is not code: understanding the clinical problem, designing something a tired person can use, testing an assumption with a real user, and working out who would pay for it. Teams that are all engineers reliably build the wrong thing beautifully.
Do I need to arrive with a team?
No, and most people don't. Teams form at the event, after the pain-point pitches, around the problems people actually want to work on. Coming alone is the normal way to come. If you do arrive with a team, expect to add at least one person you have never met.
Who can apply?
Anyone. MedWave is open across the Mediterranean to clinicians, medical and health students, engineers, developers, designers, researchers, entrepreneurs and business students — and to anyone else who thinks they can contribute. There is no restriction on where you study, where you work, or whether you have ever done a hackathon before.
How much does it cost to take part?
Nothing. Taking part in MedWave is free — there is no ticket price and no entry fee.
Will travel or accommodation be covered?
Travel and accommodation support is TBC and depends on the sponsorship we secure. If any support is available it will be described in the application form itself, so nobody has to ask.
What should I bring?
A laptop and charger if you have one, and anything specific to how you work. The full list of what is provided goes out with your acceptance email.
09Join
Applications open once. Be in the first email.
Places at a hackathon are finite and mixed teams fill fastest. The waitlist is how dates, tracks and the application link reach you — before they go anywhere else.
- Applications
- TBC
- Dates
- 5–7 February 2027
- Cost
- Free
- Places
- TBC