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  • August 2017
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Hacking Heroin

By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:30
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Abstract

"Hacking Heroin" was the first hackathon that Annie Rittgers, founder of Cincinnati-based 17a, had organized or even attended. "There will continue to be a lot of preventable overdose deaths and wasted potential if the opioid crisis continues unabated," she said. "Bright spots and positive momentum matter when it comes to directing the energy that exists in Cincinnati toward addressing the epidemic." Now though, days before Hacking Heroin in June 2017, it wasn't clear that Rittgers’s intercession would prove to be one of these "bright spots." Not quite 50 people had registered for the free event, and there was no guarantee that they would attend. Sponsorships for the event had been slow to materialize. The eight challenges that she and the team planned to pose to hackathon participants were mostly, but not entirely, settled. Some, but not all, of the key hospital leaders had signed on to participate in the event. Rittgers wondered what she could do to nudge the hackathon towards success. Were these just expected hurdles, and it would all turn out okay? Were they warning signs that warranted remedy? Or were they cues that hackathon skeptics had been right all along—what kind of way was this to address a problem of epidemic proportions anyway?

Keywords

Public Entrepreneurship; Hackathon; Heroin; Opioids; Crowdsourcing; Public Sector; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Pandemics; Public Administration Industry; Health Industry; Ohio; Cincinnati

Citation

Weiss, Mitchell, and Sarah Mehta. "Hacking Heroin." Harvard Business School Case 818-010, August 2017.
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About The Author

Mitchell B. Weiss

Entrepreneurial Management
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Related Work

    • November 2019
    • Faculty Research

    Hacking Heroin

    By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta
Related Work
  • Hacking Heroin By: Mitchell Weiss and Sarah Mehta
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