The ninth installment of Hack Merced brought together 168 innovators who were focused on developing technology for the greater good. Sponsored by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute at the University of California, Merced, the event highlighted several tracks, including “Health for Social Good.”
The winning team in the “Health for Social Good” track was Team Foood, which developed a groundbreaking image segmentation model. This tool allows users to take a photo of a meal and receive detailed nutritional insights. The team members, Liam Stelly-Hawkes and Julian Balbuena, both third-year computer science and engineering majors, emphasized the importance of planning before diving into coding.
Their project represents a significant advancement in nutritional technology as it enables users to snap a photo of their meal and get information about different food categories present as well as an estimation of portion sizes and nutrient content. In second place was the Diabetes Risk Assessment Model, a project that utilized neural networks to assess health risks based on user surveys. Team members Gabriel Lee, Luis Fuiarte, Ryan Milstrey, and Paul Stratton demonstrated how machine learning can be applied to health diagnostics.
