Pfizer Philippines Foundation helps tackle the global health crisis with the Health Impact Hackathon

With the global COVID-19 pandemic currently causing massive amounts of stress on the world’s public health system, Pfizer Philippines Foundation, Inc. (PPFI), the corporate social responsibility arm of Pfizer Philippines, helped the country’s creative minds find a solution by partnering with Impact Hub Manila to host the Health vertical of the Impact Hackathon 2021, held virtually last August 26 to 28.

One of the hackathon’s main challenges was finding a way to provide crucial health information to communities who have limited to no access to the internet, especially during the pandemic.

Team Tesla won first place with CamMD, a desktop app that works as a first aid partner at home by identifying injuries or visible symptoms and uses object detection from different open-source libraries to determine the proper treatment. Team Hakushin Impact won first runner-up with Vacchain, an idea to use blockchain technology to digitize the country’s vaccination records and decentralize it in a comprehensive infrastructure, while Team Zenin Tech came in at second runner-up with Medic Marie, a personalized virtual health assistant that offers SMS-based healthcare services for rural communities.