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UA Little Rock partnered with local healthcare providers, NVIDIA, and Google to host the second annual AI Hackathon and HealthTech Startup Week June 8–12.
Through this 5-day, daytime program, participants could earn free AI certifications in areas like coding and marketing, learn from healthcare professionals, and collaborate with peers to solve real-world challenges using AI.
Open to students ages 16–26 from Arkansas and surrounding states, this event welcomed entrepreneurs, marketers, creatives, and coders of all experience levels.
By the end of the program, participants had become teammates, budding entrepreneurs, and problem-solvers, developing innovative solutions focused on dementia care, maternal health, insurance access, mental health, and patient services.
Over the course of the week, students transformed ideas into prototypes, business plans, and presentations evaluated by healthcare and industry leaders. In the end, 30 students won a combined $20,000 in prize money, but, more importantly, demonstrated what can happen when some of Arkansas’s brightest young minds spend a week reimagining healthcare.
The third-place pitch prize of $3,000 went to Materna, a wearable health monitoring platform designed to support pregnant women in rural Arkansas.
Combining a wearable bracelet, mobile application, and AI-powered monitoring tools, Materna allows healthcare providers to remotely monitor patient vital signs and identify potential health risks. The team developed the project to address transportation barriers, healthcare deserts, and limited access to prenatal care in many rural communities across the state.
The Materna team included Kshitiz Khatiwada and Pronita Ghimire of Monticello, Ali Rizwan of Cabot, Alyson Chapman of Centerton, Sach Gulmammadov of Jonesboro, and Isidora Adeloa and Ivonne Barbosa-Melgarejo of Little Rock.
