A team of five Orthodox students took first place last Thursday following a 44-hour, female-only hackathon held in Jerusalem. Their winning design, a voice-to-text bracelet intended to relay information from first responders to hospitals, was created in response to a problem posited by Intel: how to improve communications between those first on the scene and emergency treatment centers in the event of a mass casualty incident?

The winning design. Photo: Michael Arenberg

Of the 19 teams of women aged 18-25 that took part in the event, the judges decided to award the first place to a combined team from Lev and from Ofek Seminary, an ultra-Orthodox women-only institution offering technological degrees alongside religious studies. The five students developed a watch-like, functioning prototype for a device that enables paramedics to record data about patients and their injuries. The data is then translated to text and shared with hospitals in real-time through a cloud interface, ahead of the patient’s arrival.

Second place went to a group that designed an escape room for the blind—another Intel challenge—and third place went to a team that developed an algorithm for identifying whether small flying objects pose defense threats.