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>> The information in this podcast is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. Accordingly, before taking any action based upon such information, you should consult with an appropriate financial, medical, legal or other professional.

>> Amy: Hello and welcome to the podcast Navigating the Veterinary Profession, we are your hosts, Amy Snyder.

>> Andrew: Andrew Rotz.

>> Amanda: Amanda Bates.

>> Amy: And, we're excited today because we are talking about an upcoming event NC State's very first animal health hackathon.

>> Andrew: Bop, bop, bop, ba.

>> Amanda: I am so pumped about this. We have so many exciting events happening this year and this is, I think, the earliest one, one of the earliest big ones. So, if you haven't heard, obviously, we are having an animal health hackathon and I think the first question for most people is what's a hackathon.

>> Amy: That's a really good question. So, a hackathon is an event where people come together in a compressed amount of time, think of innovative, new, out of the box solutions to every day problems. We think about it a lot in the computer science world where people will get together to hack or come up with quick fixes or innovative solutions to a specific problem and we're taking that a little bit outside the box and we're approaching it or we're using animal health problems as our problem to be solved. So, the idea is that we get a group of students together, we give you some animal health problems that we commonly see across a variety of different industries and species and we ask groups to come together and think of ways to solve those problems in a very short period of time.

>> Amanda: So, I feel like we need to have full disclosure that Dr. Snyder is the lead on this in case anyone did not know. And, so I'm pretty curious, what inspired you to think about bringing this to our campus?

>> Amy: Yeah. That's a great question. I am spearheading a large portion of this, but I couldn't do it alone. So, Amanda is also helping me out, as well as Dr. Jennifer Neal [assumed spelling], Dean's Office. Several others here at the college have been very, very instrumental in helping make this happen. And, so the idea came to me because I had the opportunity to go up to Cornell and be a part of their animal health hackathon back in January of this year. And, that was my first experience ever doing an event like this. So, Cornell's been doing this for about three years now, where they've been bringing students together on their campus. And, in recent years, they've actually expanded that to other colleges. So, I had the opportunity to go up there to serve as a mentor and just came away thinking that this was such an amazing event and that we could certainly do this at NC State, especially given all the resources we have.

>> Amanda: And, so I'm curious, for the uninitiated, this is an animal health hackathon. So, what kind of questions or ideas are you hoping to see that are going to be brought forth to the table? So, you've been a practicing vet, right? And, so what are some of the things that students might be answering or trying to answer?

>> Yeah. So, there's some very interesting questions out there and we're still cultivating the questions that will be a part of our event, but some examples from the Cornell event were, one that I really liked a whole lot, was the problem of administering intravenous fluids to hospitalized patients and the fact that our patients need to leave to relieve themselves and go outside. And, so every time a dog or a cat or any animal that's hospitalized needs to exit their stall or their cage to go to the bathroom, we have to disconnect their fluids. And, every time you disconnect and reconnect fluids, it's an opportunity to actually pass along infection. And, so what could we do or how could we create a different way to deliver those fluids so that there wasn't that connecting and disconnecting that had to take place? And so, one of the teams at Cornell was thinking of wearable solutions. So, having a wearable vest that would have the fluid pump and the fluid bags in it so that instead of having to disconnect the patient in order to take them outside, you could actually just walk them and all of their fluids and pump outside. So, things that we don't always think about as being problematic, if we're thinking about it from the human side, because with people, we can just grab ahold of that IV pole and roll it on into the bathroom with us. But in our patients, it becomes a little bit harder to do that.

>> Andrew: I had never thought of that as a problem.

>> Amy: Yeah.

>> Andrew: That's amazing.

>> Amy: Yeah. So, it's a really interesting one and it's something that we encounter all the time and we just sort of think about it as being this thing that we have to deal with, but do we have to deal with it or can we come up with a better solution? One of the problems that I am excited about for our event is the idea that a lot of our vaccinations and biologics and reagents for some of our analyzers and machines that we use have to come on ice. So, in basically every facility that I have ever been in in my lifetime, there's always this stack of Styrofoam coolers in the corner. And, if you go to the freezer and most of you if you've been in a clinic will relate to this, you open the freezer and there's this big glob of icepacks that are all melded together because on a very routine basis, a lot of animal health institutions, regardless of species, receives these shipments of vaccines or biologics that are on ice and you're left with the cooler and the icepack. So, what would be an alternative to that? How could we reduce that waste that is ongoing in our profession and has been for a long time?

>> Andrew: Drone delivery on demand.

[ Laughter ]

>> Amy: Come join our event and maybe you can win some money, Andrew.

>> Andrew: I'll do it.

[ Laughter ]

>> Amanda: So, basically, there's possibilities for innovative ideas, right. And, so we hear the term animal health, but in the scope of this hackathon, what are some of the intersections, because there's obviously other disciplines that could participate, right, and there are other things that could be addressed. So, you mentioned wearables. So, in my mind, I would think an engineering student, that's across the board, right, an engineering student might be a part of the conversation, but what are some of the other disciplines maybe you witnessed at the hackathon you went that were involved and disciplines that you hope will be involved at the hackathon here at the CBM?

>> Amy: Yeah, so a big part of this event is that this is not just the CBM students. So, this is an event with main campus as well. So, we are inviting students in engineering, textiles, college of life sciences, the pool college of management, as well as the engineering department to take part in this event as well. And, what we are really looking for is the collaboration between these individuals. So, while we know our sector, veterinary medicine really, really well, particularly let's think about for a wearable, I don't really know the qualities of different textiles and the benefits of each of those. So, having someone from the textiles area come and talk to me about their expertise can help me to think of a better solution. Because pretty much all I know is that there's cotton and polyester, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that. So, really the goal of this is to bring other people and their expertise in so that we can think about solutions to these problems in a much more broader sense.

>> Amanda: And, so I really like the concept because it also exposes other parts of campus to what's happening here. I think it can be hard for some of our students because we've got our own campus and there's things going on on main campus and this is a really great way for them to intersect. And, so what is the draw for thinking about our vet students? What's the draw for them to be part of this hackathon?

>> Amy: So, I think there's a couple of different things. One, there will be cash prizes. That should always be - Andrew can appreciate that.

>> Andrew: I love that.

>> Amy: It should always be a part of the draw, right, so let's be honest. So, as part of this event, students will be asked to pitch their ideas on Sunday to a panel of judges and the top winners will be awarded cash prizes and we're looking at a cash pot of about $3000 at this time to be distributed amongst our top winners. So, that would be number one, there will be cash. Number two, this is an amazing opportunity for students to get to network with various individuals throughout our college and to learn of some of the amazing things that are taking place on our college. We were talking in a previous episode about networking. This will be an event where we'll have a lot of mentors from the external community who will be coming in to share their expertise. So, this will be a great opportunity for them and for students who are interested in furthering their career through research. This may offer partnerships for those as well.

>> Andrew: As you're talking, it also - one of the big benefits from a networking perspective is there's a lot of DVMs out there that are not doing veterinary work, right. They're doing things that might be tangential, might just be taking their experience working in the animal field to another sector. And, I think that is a fantastic value here with the intersection of all these different subjects and communities, because you might get a taste of that. And, you might be able to say hey, I do want to be an entrepreneur that is going to build, you know, products for this thing that's a problem that I have personal experience with because I'm a DVM and I've worked with animals. Like, that's a thing that happens. You know, the world is your oyster and I think this is a fantastic way to kind of open up that oyster a bit.

>> Amy: Yeah. And, this is a great way. When you talk about that, we think about the one health initiative and that's one way in which we see this link between animal health, human health, and we see this intersection of different disciplines. And, so this is just another form of how we can interlace multiple disciplines to solve big challenges.

>> Amanda: And, I like the fact you mentioned the entrepreneur side. I know we talk about it with our students and sometimes we talk about it within the context of within a traditional practice, but really, this is a great way, as you said, for someone who may see an idea and think, I might be able to make some money off this, in addition to solving a problem, whatever the lead is. And so, I'm always a big fan of encouraging students to be entrepreneurial because they're great skills wherever they go. And, so where is this event being held?

>> Amy: So, the event's being held here on main campus. It will be at Tally Student Center [assumed spelling]. It's September 27th through the 29th. It's completely free. We will be providing you with food, so breakfast, lunch, dinner will be included and there's no commitment, as far as financial commitment, from the students except for to show up and be a part of the event. Also, one thing I want to point out is you do not need any experience whatsoever. There is no need to have ever attended a hackathon, to even know what a hackathon is. We will help you. We will guide you through the process. So, please, if you're interested in coming out, do not be intimidated, do not feel like I've never done this, I can't possibly do it. This is a beginner level event. So, all levels of expertise and all levels of students are encouraged to come.

>> Andrew: Is there a limit to the number of people that can come?

>> Amy: There is a limit to the number. So, we are looking at capping our max number at around 40 students total, so that's 40 students including our DVM students and our main campus partners. So, we are going to be limiting admissions for our DVM students, so we do encourage you to sign up soon. And, there is a website. If you go to the CBM webpage and just search hackathon, you'll find our website there and a link to sign up as a student.

>> Amanda: And, as a quick plug, I was going to say on the CBM career services site as well, it's a big ol' button in the dead center. I think it's blue. You can't miss it. All the events that are coming up and that's one of the events that we're featuring. And, it will take you to the hackathon website if you can't remember to type hackathon, just visit CBM career services and it'll jog your memory. So, pretty excited for this, excited to see what's going to happen. Any last parting words before people prepare for this?

>> Amy: We're super excited about this event. We've been working really hard all summer to get this kicked off. We're really appreciative of all of our sponsors who have been a big part of making this possible for us. Without them, it would not be possible for us to put on an event of this nature. So, we are just really excited to be doing it and really hoping that we will have students who will want to come forward and spend a few hours figuring out how we might better solve the problems of tomorrow.

>> Amanda: And, with that, thank you for checking in with us in this episode of the podcast and we'll talk to you next time.

>> Amy: Thank you.

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