Organized in Lebanon, Palestine, Türkiye, and Italy, the hackathons brought together 45 student teams and 15 professional teams, all working to design innovative AI-powered solutions to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.
More than 235 participants across the Mediterranean have completed the local editions of the AI4Purpose Hackathons, marking a major milestone for MEDAIGENCY – Mediterranean Health in Crisis: Harnessing AI for Resilience.
Organized in Lebanon, Palestine, Türkiye, and Italy, the hackathons brought together 45 student teams and 15 professional teams, all working to design innovative AI-powered solutions to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery.
These local competitions translated the project’s mission into action: connecting real emergency management needs with advanced, ethically developed artificial intelligence tools capable of supporting faster, smarter, and more coordinated crisis responses.
National Ecosystems Mobilized for Smarter Emergency Response
Each edition engaged key national stakeholders from the emergency management and public health sectors in each country, ensuring that solutions were grounded in real institutional and national needs.
Through these collaborations, participants gained direct insight into the operational realities of emergency response actors, helping ensure that the solutions developed were practical, scalable, and aligned with national and Mediterranean-level priorities.
From Ideas to Promising AI Solutions
Across the four countries, the hackathons yielded a wide range of promising AI-driven concepts, including:
Beyond prototypes, the process fostered cross-sector dialogue between technologists, policymakers, service providers, and academic institutions — reinforcing transnational cooperation which is at the heart of the Interreg NEXT MED Programme.
These outcomes directly contribute to MEDAIGENCY’s objective of strengthening health systems’ emergency preparedness, response, and recovery across the Mediterranean through ethically developed AI-powered solutions.
Advancing to the Transnational Stage
With the local editions now concluded, the competition moves to its Mediterranean wide phase.
The top three professional teams from each participating country have advanced to compete in the AI4Purpose Transnational Hackathon Pitching Event. During this event:
This final stage reflects more than a competition — it demonstrates how Mediterranean cooperation can turn shared challenges into shared innovation.
A Mediterranean Effort for Health Resilience
With over 235 participants engaged, strong institutional involvement across four countries, and transnational collaboration now underway, AI4Purpose represents a concrete step toward building smarter, more resilient health systems — together.
As the competition advances to the transnational level, the focus remains clear: ensuring that technology serves people, institutions, and communities when and where it matters most.
The AI4Purpose Hackathon is organized in Lebanon by the Humanitarian Engineering Initiative at the American University of Beirut, in Palestine by the Institute of Community & Public Health at Birzeit University, in Italy by Latitudo40 and So.Re.Sa. SpA, and in Türkiye by Izmir Katip Çelebi Üniversitesi.
Last Update
23/02/2026
Next Med