‘Generation Care’ is the winning proposal in the Battle of the Minds Hackathon

Healthcare is facing major problems. That’s why, during the Battle of the Minds, Health Minister Ernst Kuipers challenged researchers from TU Delft, Erasmus MC and the EUR to come up with a solution.

If I still had my hair, it would have been gray by now,” joked Minister Ernst Kuipers during the opening of the Battle of the Minds. According to him, it is a matter of bad timing to be Minister of Health nowadays: ‘Healthcare is facing great challenges. Due to an aging population, we have more and more people who require care. At the moment, 1 in 6 people work in healthcare. If things continue like this, 1 in 4 people will have to work in healthcare by 2040. That’s impossible, so how are we going to solve the growing demand for care?’

With these words, the multidisciplinary teams of researchers went to work. During a two-hour brainstorming session, ideas flew across the tables. They received help from artists to visualize their plans. The eight teams then presented their plans in tightly timed pitches.

Here we see real Convergence, the people in this team did not work together before and have thought outside of the box.

Prof. Dr. Ir. R.H.M. (Richard) Goossens

TU Delft

Professor of Physical Ergonomics

The winner: Generation Care

The ‘Generation Care’ team was a winner. Over the next three months, they will receive 25,000 euros to study how they can make society more healthy and self-reliant. Team member and Medical process engineer Teddy Vijfvinkel from TU Delft calls it ‘From cure to caring’: ‘We place society on a matrix. We classify society from healthy to unhealthy and from self-reliant to needy. In this way we define the problems and look for concrete solutions for those problems.’

Professor Richard Goossens was impressed by Generation Care: ‘Here we see real Convergence, the people in this team did not work together before and have thought outside of the box.’ The multidisciplinary team consists of 4 researchers, 2 doctors and 1 project manager. The Battle of the Minds was organized by Convergence for Health and Technology, the research collaboration between TU Delft, EUR and Erasmus MC.


Projectgroup that created the winning proposal ‘Geration Care.’

Impressions of the hackathon

See impressions of this very productive and converging hackathon, shot by photographer Annelies van ‘t Hul