Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2025 Hackathon and Conference to transform AI-driven ideas for healthcare innovations into scalable startups across ASEAN, while a slate of customized opportunities, including a new course, extend and leverage the impact
Bangkok, Thailand – The Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Thailand’s leading medical institution, has built a three-year strategic partnership with MIT Hacking Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to establish Bangkok as the hub of healthcare innovation in the ASEAN region. The second annual hackathon, Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2025, will take place October 31 – November 2, 2025. The hackathon will allow participants from different disciplines to form teams and collaborate to solve a key problem in the challenge area of chronic diseases. Over the weekend and through to the conference, healthcare professionals, technologists, designers, business people, entrepreneurs, and investors will work together on promising new solutions to pressing healthcare challenges across the ASEAN region.
This year’s hackathon is inspired by the vast potential of generative artificial intelligence. The theme “AI Today, Transforming Tomorrow’s Healthcare,” sets the focus on this increasingly applied tool in the field. AI has the potential to be the answer to large scale problems in healthcare, public health, disparities and the efficiency of a hospital and its staff by revolutionizing patient care, improving health system efficiency, and driving better outcomes. The conference will allow these topics to be discussed in ASEAN region, in both larger plenary sessions and interactive meetings where Siriraj researchers and practitioners will get to have focused conversations with industry, students and winners from the hackathon and other trainees will get to learn from workshops by subject matter expertise and participate in discussions to take their ideas forward.
Positioning Thailand As ASEAN’s Health Innovation Hub
Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine is purpose-built to catalyze breakthroughs in healthcare by connecting knowledge, expertise, and creativity with action. Recognizing that innovation requires more than bringing people together, the collaboration harnesses MIT’s field experience in hackathons. The overwhelming success of Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2024 prompted the collaboration to extend their plans, with annual conferences and hackathons in Thailand planned through 2027.
The collaboration’s annual hackathon and conference are designed to evolve into a new, forward-looking regional platform that draws participants from across Southeast Asia to co-create breakthrough healthcare solutions through interdisciplinary collaboration.
These engagements will actively build up Thailand’s role as an enduring international hub of healthcare innovation by harnessing the power of educational institutions, health technology, pharmaceutical and healthcare delivery industries, startups, entrepreneurially-minded individuals, and other public and private sector entities.
“This partnership represents a pivotal shift in Thailand’s healthcare innovation landscape,” said Prof. Apichat Asavamongkolkul, MD, Dean, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. “We’re not just hosting a hackathon—we’re building a comprehensive ecosystem that will transform promising ideas into market-ready solutions with global impact.”
AI Today, Transforming Tomorrow’s Healthcare
This year’s events highlight the potential of AI tools for tackling challenges facing patients, clinicians, and the healthcare system.
“AI Today, Transforming Tomorrow’s Healthcare” will be the underlying theme for both the hackathon and conference.
The hackathon invites individuals to form cross-functional teams around a real world problem. Together they will be challenged to find the right scalable solution to this real world need, with a way to be sustainably launched into the real world. For 2025,Two tracks structure the hackathon design. This year, participants will focus on chronic disease and mental health. Clinical and other experts from Siriraj Hospital–along with participants themselves–are invited to contribute domain knowledge and guidance to teams during the hackathon.
Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine also directly supports Thailand’s BCG (Bio-Circular-Green) Economy Model, particularly in BioHealth and Digital Health.
The five-day event features:
- Intensive Hackathon [31 Oct – 2 Nov]: Interdisciplinary teams develop ideas for chronic disease management and mental health solutions
- Showcase and Networking: Winning teams pitch to a curated audience of industry experts on Nov 2. Networking opportunities with peers, regional stakeholders, and global experts [Monday, 3 November]
- International Healthcare Innovation Conference [Tuesday, 4 November]: Keynotes and panels with global health tech pioneers, investors, and clinicians, along with lively interactive sessions on innovation.
Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2025 welcomes collaboration from all sectors—universities, governments, corporations, and entrepreneurial communities—who are interested in healthcare transformation. Collaborations, including during the design phase, are essential for building a region-wide ecosystem that connects ideas, talent, and capital for health impact at scale.
Selected hackathon participants will receive “Golden Tickets” to the prestigious MIT Grand Hack 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts, along with mentorship and potential funding opportunities.
Prof. Dr. Yongyut Sirivatanauksorn, MD, PhD, Director of Siriraj Hospital, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, said, “Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine is not just an academic competition platform, but the beginning of a new era in health business. We’re not just looking at a 3-day hackathon, but we’re creating a long-term platform to drive sustainable health businesses at the regional level. Selected teams will have access to mentorship, scholarships to HEALTHI Lab, opportunity to meet with leaders in the private sector, investors, and funding sources to support the extension to healthtech startups that can expand to the real market.”
A New Executive Course Turns Ideas Into Products, Practices, And Service, While Open Events Fuel Broader Conversations
Reaching the market remains a challenge for many healthcare innovators in the region. MIT experts are collaborating with Thai counterparts to launch a new action learning executive course designed to equip entrepreneurs—along with intrapreneurs and corporate innovation leaders—to develop innovative products, practices, and services. Provisionally titled HEALTHI lab (Healthcare Entrepreneurial Action Learning for Thailand Innovation), the specialized healthcare innovation course will train its first set of participants this year.
The program provides participants with direct access to clinical environments to understand needs, technical resources to develop prototypes and iterate on ideas, structured interactions with peers to accelerate the discovery and development processes, and mentorship to ready emerging innovations for the market or for uptake within a corporate setting.
Course participants will engage with hackathon and conference participants through interactive sessions during each of these events. The payoff could be a significant improvement in ideas, as the course design has participants refining their work during the final weeks of the course.
MIT brings experience from its own campus and the Boston area, a world-class health innovation incubator, to create a collaborative model for learning-by-doing in Thailand. Siriraj anchors the clinical context, serving as a potential sandbox for engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, clinicians, business leaders and technologists to test, validate, and launch innovations with meaningful societal impact.
“HEALTHI Lab transforms healthcare innovation by embedding entrepreneurs in clinical settings and orchestrating collaborations that cross sectors,” adds course creator Dr. Anjali Sastry, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, founder of MIT’s GlobalHealth Lab, and former Associate Dean of MIT Open Learning and Harvard Medical School faculty. “Our hands-on approach ensures solutions are built for real-world implementation. It also equips participants to learn by doing, providing valuable insights to leaders and managers who seek to drive innovation. Participants will include entrepreneurs, executives, and entrepreneurially-minded employees who seek to innovate inside their companies. What makes this initiative unique is its regional scope. We’re creating a sustainable innovation pipeline that connects Boston’s healthcare innovation expertise with Southeast Asia’s dynamic ecosystem and unique healthcare challenges.”
Finally, the HEALTHI Lab team plans a slate of open events: webinar-style mini-talks on cutting-edge insights from leading healthcare innovators that are open to all.
Stay notified about ‘Siriraj x MIT Hacking Medicine 2025’ and HEALTHI Lab Course @ www.SirirajxMITHackingMedicine.com.
