Ringling College of Art and Design will host the first Virtual Reality Healthcare Hackathon Invitational next year, from Feb. 9 at 6 pm to Feb. 11 at 3 pm. The College will be joined by 25 universities, each represented by teams of three students from both undergraduate and graduate schools. Twenty-five developers and healthcare practitioners will also be in attendance. Each student team will be paired with one of the developers and one healthcare practitioner.

Teams and individuals should apply by Nov. 30, 2023 and can register here. 

For three days, the teams will work together to come up with an idea or product to support and improve the needs of healthcare professionals. At the end of the hackathon, the teams will present their ideas to a panel of judges, where they will compete for prizes.  

In 2019, the Virtual Reality Development program collaborated with Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa to develop virtual reality animations to educate patients and produce training videos for physicians. Using their designs, patients preparing to receive radiation treatment are able to experience what it will be like before starting the treatment, therefore alleviating many fears and anxieties surrounding the process. 

The International Virtual Reality and Healthcare Association (IVRHA) is a member-driven organization comprised of entities throughout the healthcare ecosystem, including technology companies, teaching hospitals and universities, as well as healthcare providers and insurance companies. IVRHA’s mission is to facilitate and support the growth of virtual reality in health and life sciences.