NHA Organizes Federated Intelligence Hackathon for Healthcare at IIT Kanpur | 27 Jan 2026

Why in News? 

The National Health Authority (NHA), in collaboration with IIT Kanpur and the ICMR–National Institute for Research in Digital Health and Data Science (NIRDHDS), successfully concluded the Federated Intelligence Hackathon.

Key Points: 

• Aim of Event: The event was held as a pre-event to the India AI Impact Summit 2026 and aimed to accelerate the development of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) for Health Artificial Intelligence that are secure, scalable, privacy-preserving, and citizen-centric.  
• Focus:Promote federated AI models that enable privacy-preserving learning without centralising sensitive health data. 
• Objectives:Support development of benchmark-ready, reliable AI solutions tested on diverse, population-scale datasets to ensure trust, accuracy, and inclusion in health services. 
• Focus Areas (Healthcare Tracks):Participants competed across three critical diagnostic tracks:  
  • Bone Age Prediction: Using wrist X-rays for pediatric growth and endocrine assessment. 
  • Cataract Detection: Identifying cataracts from mobile phone images to improve rural screening. 
  • Diabetic Retinopathy: Detecting early signs of vision loss from fundus images.  
• Awards:Hackathon winners in different health AI categories received certificates and cash prizes totaling ₹12 lakh. 
• Benchmarking Platform: A key outcome was the development of a new benchmarking platform by IIT Kanpur and NHA to evaluate the efficacy of AI models while ensuring institutional control and data privacy. 
• Policy Alignment: Align AI innovations with India’s digital health architecture through Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM).