This past weekend I attended the Brown Health Hackathon at the Warren Alpert Medical school Of Brown University in Providence.

Whenever I envisioned a “hackathon,” I imaged computer hacking, coding and people creating phone applications. I have always been fascinated by computer science yet I have never had a chance to explore that avenue. When I heard about the healthcare hackathon I was intrigued. How would healthcare and hacking cross paths? Brown describes the health hackathon as, “a new kind of hackathon that aims to create solutions to medical problems and barriers.” By working together with students, healthcare professionals, artists, mentors and engineers we would aim to develop tools that could ultimately change the shape of medicine and health. Eager and excited; I signed up.

Arriving on Friday night, the event was kicked off by a speech by Brown alum John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple. I was extremely inspired by his words. He emphasized the power of team work. He described how in schools we are never really encouraged to share our knowledge and work together — it is always a competition to be the best. However, this isn’t realistic. In reality, even the most successful people in the world have help. It’s not about having the best idea or creating the greatest invention in the world; it’s about realizing that we can do bigger and better things. It’s about having an idea, getting feedback from others, implementing our ideas and creating something wonderful for the greater good of the world. Furthermore, John Sculley expressed the importance of “purpose driven innovation.” The root of every great idea should come from the willingness to do something noble and beneficial for the world.

The next day was focused on getting geared up to begin hacking. We started with a problem pitching workshop to highlight some of the questions we wanted to tackle. Once there was a range of ideas to get inspired from, we were told to formulate our teams and commence hacking. Overwhelmed by the number of medical students, medical professionals and upperclassmen undergraduates I did not know where to begin. I decided to go with my gut instinct and join a team where I felt that I could contribute the most to.

Our team was focused on redesigning hospital gowns. Our argument was based on the fact that hospital gowns are dehumanizing as well as uncomfortable for patients. We wanted to address this and provide patients with dignity as well as hospital staff with accessibility. After hours of brainstorming we had our final product: a prototype of our reinvented hospital gown.

On Sunday it was time to present our pitch to the judges. Before everyone's final presentations we were encouraged to run our presentations by the mentors (who ranged from healthcare to design specialists). Having everyone provide constructive criticism definitely helps you to put your best foot forward. You get to see your idea from someone else's perspective and find ways to improve your presentation.

Although there was an incentive to have the "best" solution as there were prizes to be won - I firmly believe that the healthcare hackathon was a wonderful and positive environment where everyone enjoyed helping everyone.

My mother always says that whenever you're put under pressure everything that is inside of you comes out. Hackathons elicit the best out of people. It is a low pressure and highly encouraging environment. Everyone is trained to be open minded and supportive. That's the beauty of a hackathon. You can make the strange seem sane and the crazy be extraordinary. There are no "bad" ideas. Only possibilities.

Hackathons are a way of condensing "genius" in 48 hours. All brains on deck. There's something about working on a challenge you are passionate about with creative and intelligent people to support you that gets your neurons firing.

One weekend can give you the confidence to believe in yourself and the idea that you can really solve anything you put your mind to. Just as Steve Jobs said, "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

I was extremely pleased when our team won third place in the competition, competing against highly qualified individuals. However, what makes me even more excited is that we continue to pursue our project past the hackathon. This is one of the most important things that the mentors and even John Sculley pointed out. Hackathons are only the beginning. Never stop thinking and hacking and never stop on your journey to be the best and give the world your best. I eagerly await my next hackathon and I can't wait for what's in store.