Track 01 of 6
Disease Detection & Prevention
Catch an outbreak sooner. Screen more people for less money. Make infection control work in a place with no lab nearby.
December 27, 2026 – January 3, 2027 Online · Ages 13 to 18
You get one week to fix something in global health.
Hack The Cure is a free online hackathon for students. Choose one of six health problems, and build whatever you think gets you closest to solving it!
- Length
- 8 days
- Tracks
- 6
- Mentors
- 2 per track
- Team size
- Up to four
- Entry fee
- $0
- Experience needed
- None
Students should get a real shot at these problems.
Most school science stops at the poster. We wanted something closer to the real thing: a documented problem, mentors who work in the field, and a week to build. Anyone aged 13 to 18 can enter, from anywhere, for nothing.
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Real problems, not made-up prompts
Every track comes from a documented gap in global health. The brief tells you who is affected and what has already been tried, so you never start from a blank page.
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Mentors who stay all week
Two mentors are assigned to each track and stay in its breakout room for the whole week. They hold office hours every day. You get feedback while you can still act on it, and there is nothing to book.
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Free, and open to anyone
There is no entry fee and no application to pass. You need a laptop, an internet connection and a week over winter break. Hack The Cure is run as a non-profit by volunteers.
Pick the problem you want to spend the week on.
You choose one track when you sign up. Each has its own breakout room, its own two mentors and its own prizes, so a nutrition project never gets judged against a diagnostics project.
Track 02 of 6
Health Education & Misinformation
Good health advice is hard to find and harder to trust. Make it easier to read, easier to check, and available in more languages.
Track 03 of 6
Healthcare Access & Equity
Distance, cost and a missing bus route keep people away from care. Close that gap for someone the system tends to skip.
Track 04 of 6
Maternal, Child & Reproductive Health
Pregnancy, birth and the first years of life are where small gaps do the most damage. Pick one and close it.
Track 05 of 6
Nutrition & Food Security
Hunger is rarely only a shortage of food. Work on the price, the distance, or the specific nutrients a community is missing.
Track 06 of 6
Environmental Health
Air, heat and pollution damage health long before anyone sees a doctor. Make those risks easier to see and easier to avoid.
How the week runs.
Two ceremonies and six days of building. Mentors are in their track rooms for all of it.
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Day 1 · Sun 27 Dec
Opening ceremony and track kickoff
We go through each subject brief and hand out the judging rubric. If you turn up without a team, team forming runs all day!
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Days 2–7 · Mon 28 Dec – Sat 2 Jan
Build time, with mentors on hand every day
Both mentors for your track hold office hours in its room every day. Drop in when you get stuck. Nothing to book, no waiting for a review slot, just send a Discord message!
Office hours: times announced closer to the event.
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Day 8 · Sun 3 Jan
Submissions close, judging and closing
Projects and demo videos are due. Judging happens within each track via Zoom. Winners are announced at the closing ceremony, and every team gets its written scores afterwards.
The rubric is published before you start.
Two judges score every project out of 100 using the weights below. You get the same rubric on day one. Nothing is scored that is not on this list.
Count me in-
30%
Health impact
Who is better off if this works, and by how much? How would you actually reach them?
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25%
Evidence and feasibility
Is the problem documented, and could your team realistically continue building this after the competition?
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20%
Originality
How unique is your idea? We're not asking it to be the first of its kind, but we want to see how you can differentiate yourself in a way that you can create impact!
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15%
Execution
How much of it works? A rough prototype that works scores better than a polished idea description.
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10%
Communication
This is your three minute demo, can a judge from another track, or a student who knows nothing about your idea beforehand understand why it matters?
Meet the judges.
Engineers and product leads from companies including NVIDIA, Meta and Microsoft. They score every project with the rubric above. More judges to be announced!
Three ways in.
Take part
Open to any student aged 13 to 18, anywhere. Come on your own and we will help you find a team, or bring up to three friends.
Count me inMentor a track
We need twelve mentors, two per track. Clinicians, researchers, public health workers, engineers. The commitment is a few office hours a day in your track’s Discord chatroom, at a time you pick.
Email the mentor teamPartner with us
Sponsorship pays for prizes, software credits and the platforms we run the week on. We are a non-profit and we publish the budget after the event.
Request the sponsor packEverything students ask us first.
If yours is not here, write to us. The answer usually ends up on this list.
Ask us anything.
Write to the organising team. A person replies, usually within two working days.
Any student aged 13 to 18, anywhere in the world. You do not need a computer science class, a STEM programme, or any history with hackathons.
Nope! If you come with an idea, plan, and a team, you're good to go! You can learn how to code along the way, and mentors are there to help!
Nothing. No entry fee, no travel, and no software you have to buy.
Up to four people, and you can enter on your own. Team forming runs through all of day one in each track room. Turning up solo is fine.
The schedule is published in EST. Both ceremonies are recorded and posted the same day, and we publish the daily office hour times ahead of time so you can plan around your own.
Two fixed points: the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony. Both are recorded. Everything else is your own build time, and office hours are drop in, so you can work around whatever else that week holds.
An app, a website, a hardware prototype, a research tool, a campaign or a policy proposal. Anything that answers your track brief counts. Projects that have been done prior to the opening day will not be accepted. Codebases will be checked prior to the awards ceremonies! Start it during the week: you cannot bring an existing project, but you can use open source libraries.
The form at the bottom of this page. There is no application and nothing to get accepted into. You add your name, and we email you the Discord invite, the track briefs and the schedule before December.
Tell us you are coming.
There is no application and nothing to get accepted into. Your name tells us how many mentors to recruit, which tracks need more of them, and which time zones to schedule around!