ACM EAAMO’24: Social Hackathon

Written By Sandro Radovanovic

We are excited to announce the upcoming Social Hackathon, a pivotal event within the ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO’24), which will take place in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

This event will be take place at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (UASLP) in collaboration with the San Luis Potosí Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IPICYT and IPICYT Mobile Health Center).

Participate and Make a Difference

We invite you to form a team and bring your skills and expertise to this impactful endeavor. The Social Hackathon offers a unique opportunity to address critical social issues through innovative technological solutions by directly working with policymakers. 

What’s more:

  • By submitting a proposal, you and your team members get free virtual registration to attend EAAMO’24

  • Finalists get one travel grant per team to attend EAAMO’24 in person

  • The winning team gets a monetary prize as well as the opportunity to collaborate directly with local policymakers to implement their solution

Teams can consist of up to eight members, with a minimum of one participant per team. We encourage the formation of international and multidisciplinary teams to foster diverse perspectives and innovative solutions.

This Year’s Challenge: Tackling Breast Cancer in Mexico

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women in Mexico, accounting for 30% of malignant neoplasms. In 2020, the incidence rate was 40.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, with Merida reporting an age-adjusted incidence of 49.3 per 100,000 in 2022. Despite established risk factors, significant gaps remain in understanding and preventing breast cancer.

Health equity studies in Mexico highlight the strong links between education, socioeconomic status, environmental exposure, and breast cancer prognosis. The hackathon will focus on developing solutions to address these disparities, emphasizing environmental risk factors such as air pollution and heavy metals, which disproportionately affect low-income populations.

Vision and Goals of the Social Hackathon

The Social Hackathon aims to harness the power of algorithms, optimization, and mechanism design, combined with social science and humanistic insights, to tackle pressing social issues. Local partners and policymakers will provide curated datasets and extensive context to inform participants’ solutions, ensuring they incorporate insights from impacted communities and policymakers.

Broad-Level Goals

This year, we are honored to collaborate with Professor Jacqueline Calderon from UASLP’s Medical School and Boston College. UASLP Medical School with a help from IPICYT Mobile Health Center has curated a comprehensive dataset that includes geotagged rates of environmental contaminants and breast cancer incidence rates across Mexico. The hackathon’s broad goals include:

  • Understanding Disparities: Extend our understanding of the relationship between breast cancer mortality, environmental carcinogens, healthcare access, and social disparities among Mexican women.

  • Creating Dynamic Surveillance Platforms: Develop a platform to store, share, and analyze unified databases to identify high-risk populations and provide evidence for decision-makers.

  • Nurturing Digital Ecosystems: Create a digital ecosystem to visualize trends, monitor and predict breast cancer disparities, and support evidence-based decisions.

  • Enhancing Technical Capabilities: Incorporate cutting-edge technologies to update the healthcare system and provide expert training.

Specific Goals

  • Priority 1—Improve Public Health Decisions: Develop novel surveillance systems to identify high-risk populations and characterize environmental and social hazards.

  • Priority 2—Reduce Barriers to Healthcare: Improve access to healthcare by connecting those most in need with healthcare facilities.

  • Priority 3—Risk Tools: Enhance breast cancer risk estimation tools by integrating environmental and social risks.

  • Priority 4—Science Education: Develop digital tools to translate scientific evidence into actionable public health decisions.

Timeline of Events

  • August: Virtual Colloquium (August 22, 2024) with experts and release of datasets. Teams start forming and begin initial work.

  • September: Ongoing project development and proposal submissions.

  • October: Finalist selection, ACM EAAMO '24 Conference participation, and elevator pitches. Winners announced.

  • November onwards: Winning teams collaborate with policymakers to refine and implement their solutions.

Who Should Participate?

We welcome medical professionals, data scientists, software developers, UX/UI designers, healthcare advocates, policymakers, students, and educators.

Collaborate, innovate, network, win prizes, and make an impact.


Sandro Radovanovic
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Colloquium Talk - Jacqueline Calderón