On 30-31 March 2019, the 2019 ISPE Europe Annual Conference held its third Young Professional Hackathon title “Young Professional Gathering”. More than 30 ISPE Young Professionals (YPs) came from all over Europe to participate in this two-day event that emphasized collaboration, teamwork, networking, challenges, new learnings, innovation, and creativity. The team, comprised of:
Coaches
Organizing Team
- John Clarke
- Marta Malo de Molina
- Emer Somers
- Elaine Clarke
This team of pharma industry professional did a fantastic job bringing the participants together and leading a full 1-1/2 day program that entailed hard work and loads of fun.
At the beginning of the Young Professional Gathering Hackathon, the Young Professionals were randomly organized into teams and presented with a real-world industry challenge to solve. These challenges were based on a case study each participant received prior to the event and focused on the following topics:
- Continuous Manufacturing
- Single Use Technology
- Process Analytical Technology
- Pharma 4.0
- Cell Gene Therapy
The teams were tasked with forming the business case for each challenge, which included:
- Identifying the idea and payback associated with their solution
- Develop a project charter that included
- Situation/problem
- Scope
- Deliverables
- Benefit
- Time required
- Resources
- Responsibilities associated with each
They had to determine the right problem and solution, develop a hypothesis, and be adaptive, flexible, and innovative. They were given access to ISPE Communities of Practice, copies of Pharmaceutical Engineering® magazine, presentations from the February 2019 ISPE Facilities of the Future Conference, and could use their laptops to utilize the internet for research and ideas.