Opening remarks were delivered by John Jacobs from the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, and by Steve Posnack, ONC Director of Standards and Technology. Participants then heard from Keynote speaker, Jon White, ONC Acting National Coordinator for Health IT  who discussed ONC's long term goal of achieving full health interoperability. He detailed his vision for how Blockchain could be applied in the healthcare ecosystem to assist in attaining that goal.  Perianne Boring, Founder and President of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, also provided a Keynote address which highlighted the significance of this event, noting this was the first time that the federal government has funded a Blockchain technology Code-A-Thon. Ms. Boring expressed the Chamber’s appreciation for the opportunity to partner with ONC in support of this emerging technology.

"The role of government is to 'build the highways, bridges and infrastructure to enable commerce' or to 'build the plumbing infrastructure of society'.  The highways of the future are virtual and we need to build a sustainable ecosystem of digital asset management for healthcare."

-Jon White, Acting National Coordinator for Health IT

The competition was officially kicked off at 11:00 am by Caitlin Ryan, ONC, who went over the competition rules and submission requirements. During “Office Hours”, a number of vendors presented their open software development kits (SDKs) and platforms for contestants to consider incorporating into their project submissions. Participating vendors were MITRE, Microsoft, Hyperledger, the United States Postal Service, Sovrin, and Hashed Health.

At 5:00 pm the live stream to YouTube ended but coding continued apace throughout the night.  Teams worked feverishly to ensure their submissions would meet the submission deadline of 7:00 am. Submissions were first posted to GitHub before being entered through the Code-A-Thon website.

Jon Holt, Founder of TranSendX, moderates the Lessons Learned discussion at Fisher Colloquium.

Debbie Bucci providing background and introductory remarks at the DC Blockchain Summit before the Code-A-Thon winners were announced.

(Photo courtesy of the Chamber of Digital Commerce)

Day 2, March 15

Day 2 was held in the Fisher Colloquium at Georgetown Univerisity's McDonough School of Business. It was attended by approximately 45 in person and by 18 remote participants. The day began with an hour long "Lessons Learned" discussion moderated by Jon Holt, one of the judges and active member in the planning committee. The discussion acted as a forum for contestants to talk about what they had learned and observed over the previous 24 hours. Participants provide recommendations and insights into the future of Blockchain, particularly the role they see Blockchain is playing in Healthcare.

This discussion was immediately followed by team presentations to the judges. Each team had five (5) minutes to present their work. Submissions were judged and weighted on the following 4 categories:

1. Technical Competence and Capabilities/Weight 35%: The demonstration addresses the primary goals of the Code-a-Thon and exhibits interoperability with existing technologies.
   
   
2. Use of Data To Provide Effective Outcomes/Weight 20%: The demonstration was presented in a way that is easy to understand, visually appealing, and will help drive understanding of current trends as well as recommendations.
   
   
3. Creativity/Innovation/Weight 20%: The project exceeds expectations through its incorporation of creative design elements and innovative capabilities.
   
   
4. Valuable Information and Insights Regarding Data/Weight 25%: Team identifies gaps in standards and utilizes blockchain to demonstrate how the technology may be used to enhance/improve existing privacy and security functions, and share data across the health ecosystem

Each track had a unique set of criteria for each category.

After the judges’ final deliberation, Debbie Bucci, ONC Lead for the event, awarded four (4) projects  "honorable mention" and announced the 6 finalist teams. Finalists were invited to attend the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s DC Blockchain Summit following the Code-A-thon and were presented their awards on stage. All submission links and slide presentations can be found here.