Abstract

After a quiz to show the importance or respiratory health, I present the evolution of Breathing Games, from our first hackathon in Montreal in 2014 to the game jam held in Montreal, Geneva, Paris and Besançon. The three main games developed (two for children with asthma, one multiplayer where people can recount their experience by creating a game level) and controllers are then shortly presented. The evolution of perspective, from the self-management of disease to reflecting on social and political barriers to health is briefly mentioned.

I then discuss common problems in organizing hackathons (information overload, waste of resources, loss of motivation), and illustrate it with the multiplication of unfinished open-source ventilation machines where one single modular design would in fact be needed. I present numbers of the covid hackathons held between March and June 2020, which mobilized 150000 people. The workforce mobilized for the five biggest events equaled 1568 full time employees… who developed 5771 competing, redundant projects instead of building on the collective wisdom.

Finally, I present today's action to build health as commons, showing that solidarity-driven medical innovation is up to 99% cheaper. I propose a method to host large-scale events to empower citizens in building democratic, plural solutions within days. A six steps model to host such events is sketched.