Black Forest Hackathon meets smartXhealth

SXH Hackathon

Three days of intensive work, 15 interdisciplinary teams, five challengers from hospitals and industry: B.Braun, Freiburg University Medical Centre, neudio, habric and myoncare presented specific challenges and provided support with data, hardware and expert know-how. Programmers, data scientists, physicians, designers and business minds worked together on solutions that create real impact for patients, care and the healthcare system - with access to cutting-edge tools, datasets and APIs, accompanied by mentors and motivated by 6,000 euros in prize money.

At the grand finale , all teams presented their innovative solutions to the jury. What impressed: not only the technical finesse and innovative strength, but also the creative collaboration across disciplinary boundaries - achieved in the shortest possible time.

Participants were inspired by keynote speeches from Prof Dr Frederik Wenz (CMO/CEO, Freiburg University Hospital) and Michael Lauk (Chief Digital Officer, B.Braun Group).

Challenge 1 - University Medical Centre Freiburg: Voice-controlled hospital assistant How can speech recognition and AI simplify interaction with hospital information systems? Instead of manual data entry, doctors should be able to access patient data, retrieve findings and issue orders by voice - based on FHIR standards and a synthetic FHIR database.

Challenge 2 - Neudio: Brain-controlled music How can music be adapted to brain activity in real time? We were looking for a mobile iOS solution with a latency of less than 100ms that connects Bluetooth brain sensors with music synthesis apps - for personalised therapy and cognitive optimisation.

Challenge 3 - B.Braun: AI-supported surgical documentation How can AI automatically select, evaluate and annotate relevant images and videos from surgical recordings? With an intuitive swipe gallery, quality filters and chronological sorting - optimised for tablets and desktop workflows.

Challenge 4 - habric: Vision Agent for the Blind How do we enable blind users to understand their environment through conversation? What was needed was an edge AI solution with a camera that provides spatially aware, precise answers to questions such as "What's in front of me?" or "What colour is the car?" in real time.

Challenge 5 - University Medical Centre Freiburg / myoncare: Virtual Transplant Clinic How can digital pathways and AI tools improve transplant care? From pre-examination to aftercare: solutions were sought for better monitoring, communication and clinical decision-making on the no-code platform myoncare.

1st place: Team wHISper - Hands-Free Voice Assistant The winning team developed a hands-free voice assistant for everyday clinical practice. Doctors can access the hospital information system by voice - call up patient data, view vital signs and order examinations. The solution runs on the service smartphone and is only activated when the phone is next to the hospital ID card in the breast pocket. An intelligent security concept for maximum efficiency in everyday ward life.

2nd place: Team N - HUGO: Digital support for transplant patients Team N developed "HUGO", a telemedical solution for the aftercare of kidney transplant patients. The platform addresses three key challenges: Information overload after transplantation, complex medication management and risks of infection and rejection. HUGO enables patient empowerment through structured digital support and has been proven to improve medication adherence (from 35% to 83%), reduce unplanned hospitalisations and transplant losses to zero - while at the same time reducing costs per patient from €10,500 to €8,500.

3rd place: Team BRAUNi - From Chaos to Clarity in Surgery Reporting

True to the motto "From Chaos to Clarity in Surgery Reporting", Team BRAUNi impressed the jury with a live demo of their product: BRAUNi processes a wide variety of input data - medical records, surgery planning, anaesthesia data and audio - using intelligent AI data processing. The product offers a structured procedure timeline and an adaptive surgical interface. The output: complete surgical reports, OPS codes, post-operative instructions and synchronised medical documentation - compatible with common standards.

Innovation meets healthcare: 48 hours for the medicine of tomorrow

From 28 to 30 November 2025, the University Medical Centre Freiburg and the Freiburg Innovation Centre became the stage for healthcare innovation. The Black Forest Hackathon - the established format for visionaries who spend a weekend working with the latest technologies in a unique atmosphere - met smartXhealth for the first time. 100 participating hackers came together to work in interdisciplinary teams on real-life healthcare challenges together with the challenge givers, mentors and innovators from the healthcare sector.

Learn more