UK: Wellcome Data Science Ideathon Competition – Apply Now!

Deadline: 30-Apr-23

Entries are now open for the Wellcome Data Science Ideathon competition that will have teams compete to propose data science solutions to tackle three urgent health challenges:

• mental health
• infectious diseases
• climate and health

The Wellcome Data Science Ideathon will fund data scientists with innovative ideas that can help further Wellcome’s work. Around 25 teams will be selected to attend a three-day, in-person event at Wellcome’s offices to work on and propose data science solutions to urgent health challenges facing everyone.

Each challenge will ask participants to develop and pitch ideas to solve problems through data science, which may involve:

• developing prototype data platforms
• building bespoke machine learning models
• app development
• application of natural language processing models.

Prize Details

• 10 teams will be selected as finalists and will be eligible to win one of the prizes or grants.
  • Student teams
    • The following cash prizes are available:
      • Gold student prize:  £3,000 per team member
      • Silver student prize: £2,000 per team member
      • Bronze student prize: £1,000 per team member
  • Researcher teams
    • The following grants are available:
      • Ideathon health challenge principal award: up to £120,000
      • Climate and health Ideathon distinction award: up to £100,000
      • Climate and health Ideathon award: up to £80,000
      • Mental health Ideathon distinction award: up to £100,000
      • Mental health Ideathon award: up to £80,000
      • Infectious disease Ideathon distinction award: up to £100,000
      • Infectious disease Ideathon award: up to £80,000

Benefits

• They want to ensure the event is as accessible as possible.
• They will pay for/provide:
  • travel and accommodation for anyone across the UK to attend every day of the event (as arranged by the events team)
  • breakfast, lunch, and dinner for every day of the event (dietary and allergy requests will be catered for)
  • reasonable costs to cover caring responsibilities (to be discussed with events team)
  • step-free access
  • gender neutral and full accessible toilets
  • refreshments (tea, coffee, water) throughout the event
  • BSL interpreters/hearing loops as required
  • access to hardware (laptops and/or tablets)
  • access to a quiet room for those may need it (available on first come, first served basis)
  • access to all written materials in advance where possible
  • access to cloud computing (available before the in-person stage of the event).
• There is the opportunity to discuss these points and any other requirements you may have with Wellcome’s events team.

Why you should take part?

• This event will be a unique opportunity to meet Wellcome staff, hear from guest speakers and have the chance to develop your innovative ideas to solve urgent health challenges.
• Student teams will have the chance to learn about grant writing and compete for cash prizes.
• Research teams will have the opportunity to develop research proposals and apply for grant funding without having to demonstrate lengthy track records.

Eligibility Criteria

• You can apply if:
  • you are a team of 3-5 postgraduate students (Masters and/or PhD).
  • you are a team of 3-5 researchers (across any career levels).
  • all members of your team are based at a UK Higher Education Institution (can be multiple Higher Education Institutions across the team);
  • all members of your team will be in the UK for the entirety of the in-person event (10-12 July 2023).
• Unlike traditional hackathons, they will not provide any matchmaking, so you must apply in a pre-formed team. Teams do not need to be based in the same Higher Education Institution and they encourage you to consider team members across multiple departments.
• For research teams, your team leader will be your Lead Applicant. If successful their organisation will administer the award. They expect that each team member will have a clearly defined role in the team and at a minimum expect the team to have some experience in:
  • Data science – for this event they define data science very broadly. This may include:
    • statistics
    • software engineering
    • machine learning and AI
    • model development and training
    • data analysis and visualisation.
  • Climate and health, OR mental health, OR infectious disease.
• All individual team members must only contribute towards one team. You cannot apply if you are already on another team.

For more information, visit Wellcome Trust.